Fade Into the Rising Sun
by LuckyLadybug
Summary: Post-series, my Pendulum Swings verse. Seto Kaiba is stabbed by a mysterious magical dagger while trying to protect Joey. Now the dagger's origins must be discovered and its damage identified in order to save his life. Azureshipping is a subplot.
1. Chapter 1

**Yu-Gi-Oh!**

**Fade Into the Rising Sun**

**By Lucky_Ladybug**

**Notes: The characters are not mine and the story is! This takes place in my **_**Pendulum Swings**_** verse, which redeemed the Big Five and Yami Bakura, and has Seto finally admit that he feels Yugi and the others are his friends. Since I use the dub localization and they're in America, I decided to make Domino High a private school because of the uniforms. Thanks to Crystal Rose of Pollux, Killer Moth, and Mega M for plot help!**

**Chapter One**

Joey scowled at his math paper. If he could, he would love to burn a hole right through it. Instead, he was stuck with it and its unflattering grade. His mother was not going to be happy about it either. Even though he had to be absent from school so often to save the world, she still expected him to somehow keep his grades up when he was there.

"Aww man . . ." he muttered in frustration.

"You know, Wheeler, if you spent anywhere as much time on your schoolwork as you do on dueling, maybe you wouldn't be continually going home with C- and D+ papers."

Joey went red. He hadn't even noticed Seto sitting in his usual spot at the back of the room, half-hidden behind an open book.

"At least dueling is somethin' productive!" he shot back. "We've gotta save the world, right?! When am I ever gonna need to know what kinda triangle this is to get by in life?!" He waved the offensive paper in Seto's face.

Seto was completely unfazed. "I guess that would depend on exactly what you plan to do with your life."

"I'm gonna be a professional Duelist!" Joey shot back.

"Typical." Seto closed his book and placed it in his briefcase.

"And I'm gonna make it big too!" Joey insisted.

"You lost to Yami Bakura in the last tournament," Seto grunted.

"We were the last two in the tournament," Joey said. "I made it all the way to the finals! Just like I usually do, Rich Boy!"

"I acknowledge you're not a bad Duelist," Seto said. "Otherwise, you wouldn't have been invited to the KC Grand Championship tournament."

Joey paused, rapidly blinking as that sank in. "Hey, that's true," he said. "That was only for the 16 best in the world! It was a lot different than Battle City was, that's for sure!"

Ignoring that, Seto went on, "But it's usually only the first-place winner who gets the prize money. They don't reward second or third place."

"I'm gonna be number one!" Joey slammed his hand on Seto's desk. "Just you wait and see!"

"I've done a lot of waiting and seeing," Seto remarked. He got up, holding his briefcase.

"It's not like you're number one either," Joey said. "You still haven't ever beaten Yugi or Atem! And I'm sure you still want to, right?"

"Of course," Seto said. "And someday I'm going to. But you don't have to worry about me interfering in your tournaments. I wouldn't have any interest unless Yugi or Atem decided to enter."

"So I'm still not good enough for ya, huh?!" Joey snapped.

"You might be a worthy opponent now, Wheeler, but I've already proven I can beat you. I'm interested in going after the ones I've never defeated." With that Seto took his briefcase and started to head out of the classroom.

Joey pointed after him. "And just maybe I'm interested in defeating you, Kaiba!" he called. "Ever think of that?!"

"If you're that determined, we'll have to set it up sometime," Seto said over his shoulder.

Joey frowned. "I can't tell if you're bein' sarcastic or serious," he said. He folded the math paper and shoved it in his pocket. "Probably sarcastic. It seems like you don't really care about dueling at all these days unless it's against Yugi or Atem."

Whether Seto was or wasn't, he didn't say more. He just kept walking down the hall.

Joey glowered after him. "You're still a stuck-up Rich Boy, even if you do think of us as your friends!" he called. "And sometimes I wonder if you really do!"

Seto wavered, but didn't turn around. It almost sounded like he muttered, "Believe what you like, Wheeler."

Scowling, Joey clenched his fists and stormed out of the room.

xxxx

Even though Domino High was an elite private school, it still had its students who weren't so elite and upright. Joey himself had aligned himself with a similar crew once upon a time, before he had met Yugi and turned his life around. He hadn't had problems with the school bullies and gangs in quite some time, and it was an unpleasant surprise to step outside and find several of them gathered around the side door, hovering like waiting vultures.

". . . Can I help you with something?" he frowned.

They all sneered and laughed.

"Why, you sure can, Mr. Wheeler," the one in the lead mocked. "You see, we want to use you as our latest test subject."

"For what?" Joey shot back.

One of them produced a knife. "To see how much you can bleed."

That brought an even deeper scowl. "Sorry, no thanks." Joey moved to walk around them.

The knife flew across the space between them and stabbed into the wall just next to Joey. He jumped back in shock and growing anger.

"It's not a choice," the leader grinned.

Joey's patience was spent. He whirled, eyes flashing, and clenched his fists. "Alright, you're asking for it!" he spat. "But you're gonna regret it! Whaddya got against me anyway?!"

The gang lunged all at once and he was forced to kick out at them and punch at the same time. The leader dodged and swung out with a chain.

"Well, you see, the way we've got it figured is that you're absent so much of the time that you should really be kicked out," he said. "None of us can figure out why the teachers are crazy enough to let you stay on. Does your mom bribe them or something?"

Joey grabbed the end of the chain and pulled, causing the bully to wipe out on the ground. "Hey, nobody insults my mom like that!" he spat. He still wasn't on the greatest terms with her, but he was loyal enough and cared about her enough that he wouldn't let such a slanderous comment go unchecked.

Two more jumped him from behind. "We don't like underachievers at our school," one replied.

"It gives it a bad rep," said the second.

Joey struggled against them, elbowing one and kicking the other in the shin. "Oh yeah? And what do you creeps think you're doing to its rep?!"

Even as they fell back, three more took their places. Instead of bothering to answer, they all simply tried to force Joey to the ground.

Suddenly one of them cried out in pain. He leaped back from Joey, holding a hand to his ear.

"What happened?" another one asked.

"Something just cut me!" The injured thug pulled his hand back, staring at the crimson on his fingers.

Joey stared. "What could've done that? . . ."

"There's more where that came from."

Now everyone turned to look. Seto was coming towards them, several cards in his hand.

Joey's eyes widened. Seto must have thrown a card like a ninja star to cut the creep.

"S-Seto Kaiba?!" another hood shrieked.

Seto's presence was more than enough to scare several of them away. Several others, however, insisted on staying, including the one Seto had wounded.

"You should be on our side, Kaiba," the leader complained. "We're only trying to make sure the riffraff stays out!"

"Then you should kick yourselves out, you slime," Seto spat. "You can't find anything more constructive to do than gang up on fellow students?! You're all pathetic. If you were really worried about grades, you'd be thinking about your own!"

Joey just stared. "Kaiba. . . ." He certainly hadn't expected Seto to come to his defense at all, nor to be so vehement about it.

The leader started to smirk. "Okay then. If you're so intent on defending this idiot, we'll just take the both of you down. Boys?"

The remaining gang members again lunged, this time going for both Joey and Seto. Several more were cut by Seto's violent card throws, while another went flying over Seto's shoulder courtesy of a judo flip.

Joey flinched. He couldn't forget how that move had been used on him in Duelist Kingdom. But now, Seto was using it to protect Joey, not to hurt him. And there was little time to really think about such ironies right now. He turned, attacking the latest wave of gang members who were coming at him.

With so many attackers it was impossible to keep track of them all. Joey landed several good blows, but then another thug hit him from an angle he wasn't watching. And despite Seto's mastery of martial arts, he couldn't ward off every assault either. He went down on one leg when a powerful blow hit his other leg.

"Man, why did I havta get stuck staying late today?!" Joey bemoaned. He hit one in the jaw.

At least the gang was wearing out by now . . . although so were Joey and Seto. It had been a vicious uphill climb, but the home stretch seemed to be in sight. Most thugs were falling back and collapsing to the ground, conceding defeat.

Joey glared down at them. "Yeah, you'd better stay down!" he snapped. "And don't try something like this again, you bunch of freaks!"

"Wheeler, why don't you pay attention?!" Seto suddenly exclaimed. "No - !"

"Kaiba - !" Joey started to turn in annoyance. At the same moment, Seto suddenly tackled Joey to the ground. He gave a strange choke and violently flinched.

Joey's blood ran cold. "Kaiba?!" He started to turn to look, but Seto was falling heavily against him,

weakly clutching at Joey's sleeves. A knife with a strangely carved jade handle was sticking out of his back. Joey froze in shock.

"You just stabbed Seto Kaiba!" one of the gang members exclaimed in horror. "Now we'll all go to prison! He and his brother will never stop tracking us down!"

The leader took a step back, shaken for the first time. "I was aiming for that runt when I threw it," he exclaimed. "I never thought . . ."

Joey tuned them out. Seto's eyes were already glazing over, the life going out of them. Immediately Joey knelt up, grasping Seto's arms in utter panic and desperation. "Kaiba, what the heck?! Stay with me! Come on! What the heck did you do that for?! _Kaiba!_"

Seto just gave him one final, weak look. "Joey. . . ." His eyes darkened and closed. The knife's blade dissolved, sending the handle clattering to the ground.

Everyone gawked at it.

"What did you stab him with?!" one of the thugs gasped.

"I just stole it from a crate at the museum," the leader retorted. "They hadn't noticed it there and I thought maybe I could sell it somewhere for big bucks! But now the blade's actually _gone!_ I can't sell it like that!" He started to back up.

"You creep!" Joey grabbed the handle. "This must be some kind of magical knife! And what the heck did it do to him?!"

"You tell us!" the leader shot back. "You're the one who's into all that magic stuff!"

Joey swore at the lot of them. He could do nothing but watch helplessly as they all scrambled away, desperate to escape. He had to stay with Seto. Weirdly enough, Seto wasn't bleeding. His clothes were torn, as was his skin, but the wound itself was doing nothing.

But then . . . neither was Seto.

Joey went stiff in horror. "He didn't just pass out," he whispered. "He's _dead!_" He shook the body, frantic. "Kaiba?! Kaiba, come on! Wake up! You can't do this! What about Mokuba?! _Kaiba!_"

Seto lay completely still in Joey's arms. Badly shaken, Joey laid the other boy on the ground and bent over him. He was already deathly pale. Joey pulled Seto's mouth open and leaned down, forcing air into his lungs. Part of him knew it was in vain; the weapon must have been poisoned somehow, leading to instant death. But Joey kept trying anyway, both to get Seto to breathe and to try restarting his heart.

At last, miraculously, Seto jerked and groaned, turning his head to the side. Joey perked up in hopefulness. "Kaiba?! Oh man, tell me you're back with me!"

Seto weakly opened his eyes. "Joey . . . ugh. . . ." He grimaced in pain.

"Oh!" Carefully Joey turned Seto onto his side. The wound was definitely bleeding now; red was going everywhere. "Hang on, I'm gonna call an ambulance!"

"You'd better try to stop the bleeding first," Seto countered through clenched teeth.

"I'm going to! I just havta find something to use. . . ." Joey dug through his backpack. "Serenity always packs me a handkerchief. Here it is!" He took it out and pressed it against the wound. "Kaiba, why the heck did you do that?!" His hand shook.

Seto shut his eyes in pain. "There wasn't anything else I could do. . . ."

"I mean, not that I'm not grateful!" Joey was still shaking. They had despised each other. Joey had even felt like he had hated Seto. But they had come so far since then—comrades, allies. . . . Seto had said that Yugi and the others were his friends, even Joey. And he had proved it. "You took that knife for me," he choked out. "I was the one who was supposed to get skewered by a . . . magical dagger. . . ."

Seto's expression twisted in disgust. "It's magical?!"

"It has to be!" Joey exclaimed. "The blade completely dissolved!"

"That figures," Seto muttered. "That's just about my kind of luck."

Joey continued to press the handkerchief over the wound while fumbling for his phone with his other hand. "Yugi, help!" he cried into the phone when it was answered. "I got into a fight with some punks after school and then Kaiba came along to help out and they stabbed him with some kind of weird magical dagger!"

Yugi gasped. "Where are you guys, Joey?!"

"Still at school," Joey said. "Nobody's around. Those creeps bugged out real fast when they realized it was a magical dagger."

"Do you have to say the M word?" Seto grumbled.

"We'll be right there," Yugi promised. "I'll see if Bakura can bring the van."

"Great, Yug," Joey said. "I guess I should still call an ambulance, though. . . . I mean, Kaiba actually died!" Yugi gasped. "I revived him, but if the thing can kill, maybe medical docs can figure something out."

"It would sure be nice to be saved by science and not magic this time," Seto grunted.

Joey looked down at him. "I'd like to say he can't be too bad off or he couldn't make these cracks, but I don't wanna bet on that. . . ."

"You shouldn't," Yugi agreed. "Yeah, Joey, you should call an ambulance, or Kaiba's medics, or whatever he wants. And I'll call Gansley and see if they can look up a magical dagger in that encyclopedia of magical objects. Can you take a picture of the handle and send it to me?"

"Sure thing." Joey quickly did so. "There you go."

"Great! Now I'll see what I can do while you get some more help for Kaiba," Yugi said.

The call disconnected. Joey sighed and looked down at Seto. "So, what do you want me to do, Kaiba?"

Seto didn't answer. He was still breathing, but he had slipped into unconsciousness.

Joey snarled in helpless frustration. "So help me, you are not gonna die on me again! I'll just havta make my own decision on what to do." He was sure he knew what Seto would want, though. He quickly dialed for help from Seto's medics.

xxxx

Gansley slowly hung up the phone with Yugi, his eyes troubled. The news the boy had brought was grim, and though they likely wouldn't have cared while drowning in hate, now it was disturbing and upsetting to even them. Lector might even be thunderstruck.

Sighing, he got up and left his office, going down the hall to where the others were watching some of the penguins play in one of Penguin World's indoor exhibits. To no one's surprise, Sammy the Adélie penguin was on Crump's lap, while George the Emperor penguin was lingering at Nesbitt's side.

Lector looked up at the familiar sound of Gansley's cane echoing on the hard floor. The look in his eyes made Lector's stomach drop. "Gansley? . . ."

The others looked up too.

"What the heck happened?!" Crump gasped.

Gansley heaved a sigh. "Yugi just called," he said. "Mr. Kaiba was stabbed by some kind of magical dagger while trying to protect Joey."

"What?!" Lector cried.

"How bad is it?" Johnson asked.

"It's bad," Gansley said. "Apparently he died, but Joey was able to revive him. Yugi is hoping we can find the object in Dr. Raven's book and learn what it does and how to counter it. He sent the picture Joey took of the handle." He held out his phone, which was displaying the image of a jade-colored handle carved and painted with pink and white entwined flowers.

Crump stared at it. "That looks too pretty to be a weapon of death."

"Which is probably what people say about female assassins," Gansley grunted.

"The book's still at your house, isn't it?" Nesbitt spoke up.

"Yes," Gansley nodded.

"Let's get it right now and go to the medical center," Lector said. He was indeed badly shaken by Gansley's news, and although some of it was certainly worry about Mokuba, he recognized that he was also worried about Seto. They were no longer enemies. He and Seto had even recently admitted that they cared about each other. Lector doubted he would ever stop wishing that he had been able to raise both Seto and Mokuba as his own.

"Yeah, let's go," Crump agreed. He petted Sammy and set him on the edge of the pool. "Sorry, little guy. We can't stay right now."

Sammy warbled in displeasure.

George nuzzled Nesbitt until Nesbitt reached and petted him.

"You know, one of these days he's gonna try grooming your hair," Crump remarked with a smirk.

Nesbitt grunted, not sure he liked that idea.

Lector looked to him as they hurried to depart. "Are you alright?"

"I don't know," Nesbitt admitted. "I don't know how to feel. I'm not happy that Kaiba is hurt. . . . He's not our enemy anymore. But . . . I still don't like how he treated all of us in the past."

"You know, I still don't like that either," Lector said. "But I had to tell myself that the Seto Kaiba who betrayed us and went back on his word isn't the same Seto Kaiba we know now. I'm not angry at the Seto Kaiba of the present-day."

". . . I guess I'm not either," Nesbitt realized.

Lector rested a hand on his shoulder.

xxxx

Yugi dreaded calling Mokuba with the horrible news, but he knew it had to be done. He would rather Mokuba hear it from him than someone at the medical center. So once he knew the Big Five would be looking for the cure, he dialed Mokuba's number.

It was a relief, at least, that when Mokuba answered the phone Yugi could hear Marik in the background. Mokuba wouldn't have to deal with it alone.

"Hey, Yugi," Mokuba said. "Seto's not back from school yet, and he's not at KaibaCorp either. And he's not answering his phone! I was just telling Marik we need to go out looking for him. . . ."

"Well, actually, Mokuba . . ." Yugi drew a deep breath. "Your brother's been hurt."

"_WHAT?!"_ Mokuba screamed. "Yugi, what happened?!"

"He was trying to help Joey deal with a gang and one of them threw a knife." Yugi was trying to speak as gently as possible, but he knew nothing could soften such a blow.

"Where is he?!" Mokuba demanded. "I've gotta go to him right now!"

"He'll probably be taken to the KaibaCorp Medical Center," Yugi said. He bit his lip. He didn't like to tell Mokuba the rest, that Seto had actually died. But it would be horrible for Mokuba to hear that news at any time, even if Yugi didn't tell him right now.

"We'll meet you over there," Mokuba said.

"Mokuba . . . will you be okay?" Yugi asked in concern.

Mokuba was silent for a long moment. ". . . Not if Seto won't be okay," he said at last.

That was what Yugi feared.

xxxx

Téa was hard at work at Mr. Thorton's holiday store, setting out the latest clearance items and prices and stacking up empty boxes to return to the storeroom, when her phone rang. She took it out in surprise. "Hi, Yugi," she greeted. "What's up?"

Yugi's news sent an arrow into her heart. Her hand holding the phone shook and with her other hand she had to catch hold of a shelf as her knees gave out.

"Miss Gardner?!" Mr. Thorton ran out from around the counter. "What on Earth is wrong?!"

"Kaiba was stabbed and we almost lost him!" Téa choked out in anguish. "And we still might lose him!"

"Oh. Oh my." Mr. Thorton stared at her. "W-Why don't you take the rest of the day off and go to him?"

Téa managed a weak nod. "Thanks, Mr. Thorton. . . ." She stumbled to her feet and hurried out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

Téa's thoughts were an agonizing whirlwind as she ran towards the medical center. She barely remembered anything else Yugi had said—just that one horrible sentence. _Seto had been stabbed and had almost died._

Somewhere in her mind she registered too that he had said Seto had been hurt saving Joey. Thank goodness Joey was alright. . . . But he must be feeling horrible for someone to get hurt saving him. Especially someone he knew. . . . And someone he had had so many problems with. . . .

They had all had so many problems with Seto. But that seemed a lifetime ago now. He was still frustrating, as Téa knew so well, but he was their friend.

And she had been thinking about him so much more than Atem lately. . . .

She wasn't sure what that meant, really. He was a new friend, so maybe that was why. . . . Only she hadn't devoted this much thought to the Big Five, who were even newer friends. Seto, however, had been around much more than the Big Five and she had had many more occasions to be frustrated by him.

Of course . . . she had also mused that it probably wouldn't be terrible if she and Seto were dating, like Gozaburo's ex-wife had wondered. . . .

She frowned. Was she . . . could she possibly . . . be developing feelings for Seto like she'd had for Atem? She never would have believed it before. But . . . after everything . . . maybe it wasn't impossible. . . .

Even if she was, though, it was surely a pointless and ridiculous venture, just as it had been with Atem. Probably even moreso than with Atem. Seto wouldn't be interested in anything like that. Friendship was still so new to him. He might even shut down if she tried to introduce the thought of anything else too. . . . And she didn't want to lose him as a friend. That was too special, too precious, to risk.

But . . . what if she was going to lose him anyway?

She choked, bringing a hand to her mouth. No, he had to pull through! He _had_ to! Mokuba would never be able to stand it if he were gone!

. . . And . . . neither would she.

She kept running.

xxxx

Joey barely remembered the ride to the KaibaCorp Medical Center. He had to sit in front in the ambulance, and his thoughts largely wandered, caught up in his agony over what had happened. He turned the dagger handle over and over in his hands. Could he have prevented this? Probably, if he had paid better attention like Seto had said. If he had seen the dagger flying at him, he could have got out of the way and Seto wouldn't have had to tackle him. Seto wouldn't be lying in the back while the medics tried their best to keep him alive. . . .

The ambulance stopped and Joey shakily got out, watching as Seto was wheeled inside. He followed, and his heart dropped down around his knees when Mokuba came running over. He and Marik had beat them there.

"Big brother!" the boy cried. He could only watch helplessly as the gurney was wheeled into the emergency room. Seto was still unconscious.

Marik laid a hand on his shoulder. "Your brother is strong," he soothed. "He'll keep fighting and he'll be alright."

Mokuba certainly knew Seto was strong. But that didn't stop him from worrying anyway. He bit his lip and looked down. "I know, but . . ."

"But nothing!" Joey interrupted. "He's gonna be fine!"

Several tears slipped from Mokuba's eyes. If only he could believe that!

Waiting for news was agonizing. The more they all lingered in agony in the waiting room, the more Joey couldn't take knowing he was responsible for all of this suffering. Mokuba didn't accuse him, but he knew it was his fault. And remembering what he had snapped at Seto earlier made it even worse. Finally he couldn't take being there anymore. He stormed out on an enclosed balcony and pulled the glass door shut after him. Then he could only slump over the wooden railing, propping himself up with his elbows as he dug his hands into his hair. "Why . . . !"

The door opened in the next instant. "Joey?"

He turned. "Serenity. . . ."

She came over to him, her hazel eyes filled with kindness and concern. "Duke and I just got here. I'm sure Kaiba really will be okay. . . ."

"Well, I'm not, Sis," Joey frowned. He leaned on the railing with one arm. "And I have to know that he wouldn't even be hurt if I'd seen that creep throwing a knife at me! Kaiba grabbed me out of the way to save my life, but then the thing caught him instead!"

Sorrow filled Serenity's eyes. That brought to mind all too well how Duke had agonized over David sacrificing himself. Nothing Serenity had said had helped. Duke had never been able to deal with the grief and the guilt, and it had eventually prompted him to go looking for a way, any way, to bring David back.

It also made her think of how Tristan had sacrificed himself for her in Noa's world. She had blamed herself and had been lost in anguish until Duke had finally gotten through to her. She knew firsthand how Joey was feeling.

"Kaiba did what he felt he had to," she said. "He wouldn't want you torturing yourself over it."

". . . We got into an argument right before it happened." Joey looked away. "Things got heated and I even said I wondered if he really did think of us as friends like he said."

"Oh no," Serenity said softly. "I'm so sorry, Joey. . . ."

"I know I always run at the mouth and say things I regret later, but this . . . !" Joey slammed his fist into the wooden guard underneath the railing. "Kaiba was clinically dead trying to save me!"

"Kaiba's said a lot of mean things to you too," Serenity reminded him.

"Yeah, but we were supposed to have got all past that." Joey frowned and straightened. "I'm the one who said the garbage this time!"

"I'm sure he forgives you," Serenity said softly.

"Whether he would or not isn't the point," Joey said. "I mean, I really know he's been our friend. He's done a lot to show it, even if he still doesn't want to participate in some of the silly stuff or go bowling or snowboarding with us. And I still _said_ that!"

Serenity didn't know what else to say. She came over and hugged Joey close and he clutched her as he tightly shut his haunted eyes.

xxxx

Lector's hands were trembling as he turned the pages of the old book. He had to stop shortly; reading in a moving vehicle was not something he could do. He had been so desperate to find the answers that he had tried it anyway.

Gansley sighed and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Lector. . . ." It was strange to see them all worrying over Seto Kaiba's fate, but that was further proof of how far they had all come. Nothing was as it had been.

"What is going on around here?!" Lector finally exclaimed. "I just realized—the picture Yugi sent us of the dagger handle looks similar to the thing that madman wore when he dragged me off the cliff!"

Johnson gasped. "You're right! They were both jade!"

Lector nodded. "I got a better look at his pendant than the rest of you did. It didn't have flowers, but it had some kind of Oriental characters. Chinese, maybe?" He looked back down at the book.

"So maybe we're dealing with an entire set of Chinese magical objects?" Johnson stared at the book too. "Why are they all starting to turn up now?!"

"I don't know, but it worries me," Lector said. "What if all of them are going to show up and get used against us?"

"Well, the dagger was supposed to be part of a museum exhibit," Gansley remembered. "Perhaps Ishizu or Bakura's father would know more."

The limousine pulled up at the medical center and they all got out, Lector bringing the huge tome with him. But he passed it on to Nesbitt as they went inside and Mokuba saw him coming.

"Lector . . . !" Mokuba ran over and hugged Lector around the waist.

Lector pulled him close. "I am so sorry, Mokuba. . . . Do they know anything more?"

Mokuba shook his head. "No. . . . I don't know what to do, Lector! I just don't know what to do!"

"There's not much any of us can do, Mokuba," Lector said quietly, "except wait and pray."

"And that's the hardest stuff of all," Crump added. "Well, the waiting. But sometimes the praying too."

". . . We're trying to figure out where the dagger came from," Nesbitt spoke up, wanting to be helpful. "We're still not sure. But Lector remembered that it looks like the pendant that last nutcase was wearing when he hurt Lector in the canyons. They're both jade. And they might be Chinese in origin."

"Chinese magical objects?" Atem's eyes flickered with worry.

"I'll keep going through the book until I find something," Lector promised. He reached to take it again.

"Maybe they're not even in there," Mokuba said softly.

"We have to hope they are." Lector walked to the nearest chair and sat down, opening the encyclopedia again.

In a few minutes the doors opened again and Ishizu hurried in, followed closely by Rishid and Mr. Bakura.

Marik looked up. "Sister . . . brother. . . . Do you know anything about the dagger?"

"First, is there any news about Kaiba?" Rishid asked.

"No," Mokuba said sadly. "I don't think the doctors know what to do at all. . . ."

Marik hugged him close.

Ishizu sighed. "I wish I could say I knew about the dagger. I don't handle the Oriental section of the museum, and the one who does is out of the country at the moment."

"I at least know that he came to me wanting to get hold of a strange set of Chinese objects for his latest exhibit," Mr. Bakura said. "I found a copy of the papers when he sent for them. A dagger is listed. But there's no indication that he was aware he was buying . . . erm . . . magical properties." He shifted, uncomfortable.

"Is a pendant listed?" Johnson asked.

Mr. Bakura pulled out the sheaf of papers and looked. "Yes. . . ."

"What if that's the one that madman was wearing when he dragged Lector off the cliff?" Johnson worried.

"So maybe it got stolen from the crate too?" Crump frowned.

"Oh, who knows," Johnson groaned.

"We'd better see the entire list," Atem said.

Mr. Bakura handed it over and stood by, still looking uncomfortable.

Atem quickly scanned through it. "A fan, a comb . . . a string of pearls. . . ."

"Well, that all sounds pretty innocuous," Crump shrugged.

Yugi peered at the list too, then looked up at Mr. Bakura. "Do you have pictures of these things?"

He nodded. "Everything was catalogued when it came in. The dagger was noted as missing and we've been looking for it."

"But not the pendant," Gansley noted.

"It was there," Mr. Bakura said. "Or at least . . . _a_ pendant was there. . . . But we have no reason to think it wasn't the one we ordered." He got out his phone and swiped through it until he found the pictures.

Yugi gasped. "All of the objects either have the pink and white flowers or the same Chinese characters! Or both!"

Lector leaned in to see. "Those _are_ the characters that were written on the pendant. I'm sure of it!"

Mr. Bakura turned the phone around to see. "Well, unfortunately, I don't know what they mean," he frowned. "My speciality is Egypt, not China. I'll have to make some calls."

"The pendant was never found, either," Gansley remembered. "It wasn't on the man's body."

"It's probably on the river bottom, like we thought," Nesbitt grunted.

"Probably, but I wonder if we can count on that," Atem said.

"This man," Mr. Bakura interrupted. "Who was he?"

"We don't know, Sir," Lector said. He settled back in the chair with the book. "He never gave us his name. He just had that pendant and was trying to use its powers. We tried to stop him and he and I fell over a cliff. Well, he pulled me down with him."

"When his body was found, he had been too mutilated by the waterfall and the rocks for an identification," Gansley said. "But he was wearing the same clothes and seemed to have the same skin tone and hair color."

"He's still listed as a John Doe, as far as we know," Nesbitt said.

Mr. Bakura sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I wonder if there's any chance that he's the missing museum employee. He certainly could have easily taken the pendant from the exhibit. And we haven't been able to contact him since he supposedly left the country."

"We had better look into this," Ishizu said in concern.

"And you should also check his office and stuff, see if he left any clues about all these artifacts he was sending for," Crump said.

"We will," Ishizu promised.

Again the doors flew open and Téa was standing there, winded and breathing heavily. She leaned forward, placing her hands on her knees. "Is there any news . . ."

"No," Tristan interrupted. ". . . Did you run all the way here?!"

Téa straightened and nodded. "I didn't want to wait around for a ride." She walked over near Mokuba and shakily sat down. "How are you holding up, Mokuba?"

Mokuba looked away. "I just keep telling myself that Seto's gonna be okay. He's gotta be okay! . . ." He blinked back tears, but more only came.

Téa drew an arm around his shoulders. "Where's Joey?" she asked in concern.

"He's out on the balcony with Serenity," Duke offered.

Téa sighed. "He feels pretty awful, doesn't he?"

"Yeah. . . ." Yugi looked down. "I wish there was something I could do to help. . . ."

The balcony door finally opened and the Wheeler siblings entered, just as the doctor was emerging from the emergency room. Everyone tensed.

"Well?!" Mokuba exclaimed, jumping down from the chair. "How is he?! How's my brother?!"

The doctor sighed, looking both exhausted and bewildered. "He's stubbornly holding on. . . . But we still can't figure out what happened. In all honesty, it looks like the entire dagger blade was made of poison and completely dissolved into his system, but we haven't been able to identify the poison or create an antidote."

"It was _made_ of poison?!" Marik said in disbelief. "How is that possible?!"

"Magic," several of the group intoned at once.

Nesbitt snarled. "That's the only way something so completely unscientific could be possible."

"Although it was said in the Duel Monsters' dimension that they consider magic to be science," Atem remarked. He frowned. "Isn't there anything more you can do, Doctor?!"

"We're not giving up," the doctor assured him. "But until we know the properties of the poison, we can't find the cure."

Lector was still going through the book. Suddenly he stiffened. "Here they are," he exclaimed.

Immediately everyone crowded around him. Lector allowed Mokuba to get the closest, feeling he most deserved to see it first.

"There's the dagger!" Mokuba cried, pointing at the photograph of all the items together.

"And the pendant," Nesbitt growled.

Lector quickly read through the information. "Unfortunately, it still doesn't say what the poison is," he said in dismay. "It says it's a well-kept secret among the sorcerers who made the items."

"It also says the blade grows back!" Mokuba exclaimed. "If it would just do that in time, you could study it!" He looked up at the doctor.

The physician ran a hand through his graying hair. This was completely bizarre, to actually be listening to this and not dismissing it as utter nonsense, but he had seen many preposterous and supernatural things that he had been forced to admit were real. With Seto's life at stake, he had little choice but to do that again now.

Nesbitt was reading over Lector's shoulder. ". . . It also says that death is usually instantaneous, but that if someone doesn't die right away, it can happen any time within the next 24 hours!"

"What if he's already died and been brought back?!" Joey demanded.

"What?!" Mokuba shrieked.

Yugi looked down. "I'm sorry, Mokuba. . . . I didn't want to tell you that over the phone . . . or at all if I didn't have to. Yes, your brother died almost immediately, but Joey revived him."

"Then he's gonna pull through for sure!" Mokuba screamed, gripping the chair arm until his knuckles turned white. "He has to!"

"The book doesn't say anything about being revived," Lector said, placing his arm around Mokuba's shoulders. "Maybe that improves the odds."

"It has to!" Téa vehemently cried.

The doctor heaved a sigh. "Well, we'll keep trying." He hesitated. ". . . Does the book say how long it takes before the blade . . . er . . . regenerates?"

"It doesn't say, unfortunately," Lector frowned.

The doctor threw his hands in the air. "Of course not. That would be too easy." Shaking his head, he turned to leave.

"Wait!" Mokuba called after him. "Can I see my brother?"

"Soon," was the reply. "I'll let you know when we have him in a room." The doctor vanished through the emergency room door again.

Mokuba rocked back. "Seto . . ."

His plaintive voice stabbed everyone present.

Joey grabbed the book off of Lector's lap. "So what else does it say?!" he demanded. "Does it say anything about what they're called or who created them or anything like that?!"

"They don't seem to have an official name," Lector said, slightly perturbed yet not really able to blame Joey for his rather rude action. "They're filed under Unclassified Items. And it only talks about ancient sorcerers creating them."

Téa turned away in anguish. "If only we knew someone who could help us! . . ." She gripped her arms.

"But the only Chinese people we know are creeps," Joey scowled. "And we don't know anyone who researches Chinese magic. . . ."

"It's probably not something just any old layperson would know anyway," Tristan said in frustration. "What are the odds we'd ever find someone who knows about this stuff? At least in time to . . ."

"Hush," Lector cut in.

Tristan glowered, but almost instantly saw the reason for Lector's uncharacteristic interruption. Mokuba looked about at his breaking point.

"Seto's going to be fine!" he screamed. "It doesn't matter what you think! He's not going to die! He's not going to leave me!" He pushed away from Lector and ran out the front doors.

"Oh, great going," Duke scowled. "And this from someone who always scolded me about being too negative."

"Oh man. . . ." Tristan started for the doors too. "We have to get him back!"

"I'll go after him, Mr. Taylor," Lector said. He walked out in front of Tristan.

"And so will I," Marik added. "But most of you should keep trying to work out some kind of solution. We have so little time."

"I know!" Téa snapped, harsher than she had meant to sound.

Joey hit the wall. "We're gonna save him! I just . . . don't know how yet. But we're going to!"

"Let's go about this logically," Gansley said. "There has to be someone in the area who knows about Chinese artifacts. We'll run some Internet searches."

Nesbitt took out his phone. "I'm on it."

Yugi bit his lip. "I could ask Grampa too," he volunteered. "He traveled all over the world. Maybe he met someone who could help. . . ."

"It's certainly worth a try," Atem said.

"Good luck, my friends," Lector said as he and Marik hurried out the doors.

xxxx

Mokuba hadn't gone far, nor did he want to. He wanted to stay as close to Seto as he could, just in case more news came soon or in case he would soon be allowed to see Seto. But he sank down against the side of the building and pulled his knees up to his chest as he sobbed.

It had always been easy to be strong when Seto was there. It had been just the two of them for so many years. Seto had looked after Mokuba as best as he could and they were best friends as well as brothers. Even when Seto had started falling into the darkness, he had still been there, and Mokuba had kept hope and stayed strong to bring Seto back to the light. But now Seto was fighting an entirely different type of darkness, and worse, Mokuba wasn't even permitted to be with him right now. He felt so completely helpless.

They certainly weren't alone anymore, and if anything did happen, Mokuba would be well-provided for. But he didn't care about that. All he cared about was that he might be losing Seto.

"Please, God, don't take him," he sobbed. "Please help us know what to do. . . ."

"Mokuba?"

He looked up through tear-filled eyes. Lector and Marik were running over to him. He sniffled, but didn't even try to wipe his eyes.

"I don't know what to do," he choked out. "Why isn't there something we can do?!"

Lector knelt down in front of him. "We're trying to do what we can," he soothed. "We're not giving up."

Marik nodded. "As long as there's time, there's a chance. I gave up hope during Battle City the stronger that creature grew, but if I'd just had the will to keep fighting, I might have beaten him before things ever went as far as they did."

Mokuba finally came forward, hugging both of them as he shuddered. ". . . I wonder if Seto has hope," he said softly.

Lector held him close. "Your brother is one of the most determined and stubborn people I have ever met. And the last thing he would ever want to do is be beaten by magic. He'll keep fighting."

Mokuba managed a weak chuckle. "Yeah. . . ."

"Not to mention," Lector added, "he would never want to leave you." He couldn't have said that in all honesty some time back, but now he knew Seto cared about Mokuba. Seto would fight tooth and nail to stay with his brother.

"Our parents never wanted to leave us either, though, and they did," Mokuba said softly. "Then our relatives showed up for the will and took all the money but wouldn't take us. They're the ones who dumped us at the orphanage. . . ."

Marik's eyes narrowed. "They really should have been taken to court and forced to accept their responsibilities," he spat. He had heard the tale before, and it angered him every time.

"Yeah . . . but we didn't want to be raised by them," Mokuba sighed. "I guess they would've been better than Gozaburo, though. . . ."

Lector hadn't heard the story before. "What?!" He stared at Mokuba. "And you've never seen them since?"

"No." Mokuba shook his head. "I hope we never see them again."

Lector frowned. He hoped so too, but he had to wonder what would happen if those relatives realized the boys they had rejected were now the most powerful people in the city. If they were so greedy, they could easily turn up again, trying to get money from Seto or even worm their way into the company. Maybe some investigating should be done to find out where they were now.

Marik looked worried too. Depending on how terrible they were, what if they would even like to get Seto out of the way and then turn up trying to lay claim on Mokuba to get to the company?

"Let's go back inside," he said. "You'll probably be able to see your brother soon."

Mokuba nodded. "Okay."

As they straightened to go in, Lector couldn't deny the feeling that they were being watched. He turned, frowning. A dark, slender figure was standing atop a building across the street, looking down at them. Then in a blink, the person was gone.

"What is it?" Marik asked.

"I don't know," Lector said. He didn't feel he could say it was nothing, not after everything they had been through. But who could it have been, and why?


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

Téa had been slumped against the wall for some time. She was worried about Mokuba and Joey in addition to Seto, but it seemed like others were doing better at comforting them than she felt she could at the moment. Her mind just felt blank.

"Téa?"

She started. Yugi was standing in front of her, looking up in concern.

She tried to smile. "Hey, Yugi. . . ."

"Kaiba's going to be alright," Yugi said soothingly. "Do you want to talk?"

She managed a weak smirk. "Usually that's my line. I just . . . I haven't felt able to talk to or comfort anybody about this. . . ."

"Even the comforter needs comfort sometimes," Yugi said. "I know how much you've come to care about Kaiba."

Téa could feel a deep blush going over her cheeks. "You do, Yugi? . . . I mean, of course I care! Kaiba's become one of our close friends. . . ."

Yugi smiled. "Come on, after all the years we've known each other, I can read you like a book. I always did know how you cared about Atem."

Téa was still red, but she smiled a bit. "That's true, you did. You set us up on that date. . . ." She shifted. "But I never felt like I could tell him. . . . I knew he didn't feel that way about me, and I didn't want to ruin our friendship by making it awkward. . . ."

"And that's how you feel now, too?" Yugi surmised.

"Actually . . ." Téa looked away, embarrassed. "If I really care about Kaiba that way, I think I'm only starting to admit it to myself now. But maybe that's why I haven't admitted it . . . knowing that it's the same kind of situation. . . ." She brushed a piece of hair behind her ear. "Or maybe it's even more that way than with Atem. . . . You know how hard it was for Kaiba to say we're his friends. . . . Can you imagine the kind of trouble he'd have dealing with someone having _other_ feelings for him too?"

"Yeah, I see your point," Yugi chuckled. "And I can't say you're wrong. But . . ." He sobered. "When things are so critical right now, do you really not want Kaiba to know how you feel?"

Téa sighed. "If he wakes up . . . and it turns out there's nothing that can be done . . . I don't want to say Goodbye in a way that might end things on a sour note. . . . What would be the point of telling him if nothing can come of it anyway?"

"I guess I can see that too," Yugi said. "But then on the other hand, what if we figure out how to save him and he'll be okay? You'd have another chance."

"I guess I'd have to see how I felt," Téa said slowly. "But I think I'd rather experience being friends with him for a while. We haven't really had that much time to enjoy being together, with all the saving the world and disasters and near-tragedies going on."

"That's true," Yugi agreed. "Well, it's your decision. Just know I'm always here if you want to talk."

Téa smiled. "Thanks, Yugi. You've always been a great friend."

Yugi smiled too. "Sure."

The front doors slid open, prompting them both to look up. Lector came in carrying Mokuba, who had his arms flung around Lector's neck. Marik walked alongside.

"Oh thank goodness you found him," Téa exclaimed.

"He wouldn't go far with Mr. Kaiba hurt," Lector said.

Gansley frowned, seeing how troubled Lector looked. It could be because of Seto being hurt and Mokuba's anguish, but somehow he had the feeling it was about more than that. "What is it?" he asked.

Lector sighed. "Somebody was watching us from the building across the street," he admitted. "I don't know who. Then they were suddenly gone."

Nesbitt looked up with a start.

Mokuba stiffened. "What?!" He struggled to get down. "What if it was someone who knows what's going on and knows how to help Seto?!"

"It could be," Marik said, stunned by the news as well, "or it could be something very different. Maybe it has nothing to do with us at all."

"I'm going to go over there and look, just in case," Lector said.

Nesbitt got up. "And I'm coming with you!" he declared.

"What about your search?" Johnson exclaimed.

"I've sent out a couple of emails to local professors of Chinese culture and antiquities," Nesbitt said. "Here! See if you can find phone numbers for them if they don't write back right away!" He flung his phone at Johnson, who scrambled to catch it.

Gansley sighed. "Nesbitt, you're being impulsive again. . . ."

"You can't deny we don't have much time," Nesbitt retorted. "And I want to know who was watching Lector!"

Lector sighed but had to smile. "Alright then. Come on." He looked to Mokuba. "But you need to promise to stay here, Mokuba. We don't know what's over there."

Mokuba clenched his fists. "I don't want any more people getting hurt!"

"We'll be careful," Lector soothed.

". . . You know, I wonder where Mai is," Joey suddenly said. "And the Bakuras. They were all supposed to be here. . . . Bakura called his dad and got him to come out here, but he didn't show up himself."

"I hope they didn't get into trouble too," Serenity said in concern.

"Try calling them again, Sis," Joey said over his shoulder. "I'm going with Lector and Nesbitt."

Serenity stared at him. "Joey - !"

"Hey, it's better than just sittin' around not bein' able to do anything useful," Joey said.

Atem nodded. "I'll come as well," he decided, stepping forward. "Yugi, please let us know the moment you hear any more news."

"Right," Yugi said. His eyes flickered with worry, but he didn't offer any protests. Hopefully, the mysterious observer really didn't mean any harm.

xxxx

The building across the street was an office building, only several stories as compared to KaibaCorp's many. It was after-hours and most of the windows were dark, but the door still opened.

"How odd," Atem frowned. "You don't suppose we're walking into a trap?"

"We could be," Nesbitt grunted.

"Hello?" Lector called. His voice echoed eerily up and down the halls. The lobby was lit only by dim lights, enough to see where they were going but also to cast unsettling shadows across the floor and walls.

Joey jumped. "Man, I hate deserted places," he moaned.

"Then let's change that, shall we?" came a new, female voice.

"Who's there?!" Atem demanded. "That voice . . . it sounds familiar. . . ."

The rest of the lights came on. Now a young woman was standing on top of the receptionist's desk. Suddenly she squealed and leaped down, making a beeline for Lector.

"Oooh! You came! I was hoping you'd come to investigate what you saw!" She snuggled close, to everyone's shock. "I'm Vivian Wong, but you can call me Viv! We're going to be such good friends!"

"What do you think you're doing?!" Nesbitt snapped.

Lector finally shook himself out of his shock as the bizarre girl lovingly stroked first his chest and then his beard. "Excuse me?!"

"Don't you ever have any concept of personal space?!" Joey exclaimed.

"I thought it was Yugi you were interested in," Atem frowned. "And Kaiba. . . ."

"Oh, I decided I'd much prefer a strong and dignified older man," Vivian said. "Someone with . . . experience, if you know what I mean."

Nesbitt's expression twisted in disgust. "Some 'older men' are still as pure as the driven snow," he retorted.

"Oh, you can't be serious!" Vivian scoffed. "Handsome men like you two?! Women must be all over both of you!"

"I don't have time for this," Lector cut in. His eyes flashed. "Seto Kaiba is laying at death's door and we're trying to find the cure! . . . You said your name is Wong? You're Chinese?"

"That's right," Vivian smirked. "And what if I told you I know what the cure is?"

"Then don't play games with us!" Atem boomed. "We have less than 24 hours to save him!"

"Oh, I'd be willing to tell you all about how to save him," Vivian purred, walking her fingers up Lector's suitcoat. "Just as long as you agree to be my love slave."

"_WHAT?!"_ Both Nesbitt and Joey looked ready to bite through metal.

"You are lower than low!" Joey added, clenching his hands into fists. "To try to do something like this . . . after Kaiba risked everything just to save me. . . ."

Lector grabbed her wrists and pushed her back. Now his outrage was boiling over. "You are absolutely disgusting! Twisting someone's life into an occasion to satisfy yourself on some base pleasures! I can promise you that you will get nowhere with me!"

Vivian pulled away. Now her eyes looked thoroughly dangerous. "Fine then! You'll never save Seto Kaiba in time!" she spat.

Atem stepped forward. "Do you really know how to save Kaiba? I find it odd that you would suddenly appear and know all about what happened to him without even asking anyone."

Vivian sneered. "Well, maybe I just have certain . . . privileges?" She spread out her cloth fan, seductively hiding the lower part of her face with it.

". . . That's another of the items!" Atem cried. "It's covered in those pink and white flowers!"

"That's right," Vivian said in a sing-song voice. "It shows me visions sometimes. It showed me all about what's been happening here tonight."

"Of all the people to get one of those freaky magic items, it has to be her!" Joey exclaimed.

"You must have already been here," Lector said, finally finding his voice again. "It would take too long to fly here from China."

"Oh yes, I was already here," Vivian nodded. "I was hoping to get you."

"Well, you failed," Lector snapped.

Atem drew a shaking breath. "Please, if you have any shreds of decency at all, you'll tell us what we need to do to save Kaiba," he pleaded.

"And settle for . . . a dinner or something," Joey added.

Lector shot him a Look. He didn't want to entertain this character even as far as dinner!

Vivian heaved an overdramatic sigh of exasperation. "Fine. The antidote is in the pearls that are also part of the set. Break them open and it's there."

"The pearls were part of that guy's order!" Joey exclaimed. "So let's go to the museum and get them!"

"And just hope they're not gone too," Nesbitt grunted. "The fan was also part of his order, and now this tramp has it!"

"What did you call me?!" Vivian shrilled.

"Exactly what you are," Nesbitt snapped.

"It's a fair question," Atem loudly said before the confrontation could escalate. "How did you acquire the fan, Vivian?"

Vivian sneered. "If you want the answer to that, Mr. Lector will have to take me to dinner."

"You have no right to try to blackmail us like that!" Lector boomed.

"Forget about her," Joey said in disgust. "Let's just get to the museum and find those pearls!"

"Only I'm afraid Nesbitt has a very valid point," Atem sighed. "The pearls we want may be stolen and even replaced with fakes."

"We still won't know until we try!" Joey exclaimed. "Come on, let's go!" He turned to run out the door.

"You know, I _could_ just lock everything down and keep you all here!" Vivian sounded almost pathetic now. She knew she hadn't successfully ensnared anyone.

"I wouldn't put it past you," Nesbitt retorted. He turned to leave too. "But we have better things to do than contend with you."

"Goodnight," Lector added, his voice clipped and cool. To Nesbitt he said, "We'll need to let everybody else know what's going on before we go to the museum, since they knew we were just coming here."

"Fine," Nesbitt grunted. "We should warn them about _her_ anyway."

Vivian glared daggers at them.

Only Atem turned back as they headed for the doors. "You know, if you really want to capture someone's heart, you'll never do it with these tricks."

"If she really cared about anything other than herself in the first place, she wouldn't pull these tricks," Lector countered. "She's just like Darcy. Or possibly even worse."

"Just go," Vivian growled. "You'll end up needing me to solve this. You'll see."

The only response was the doors slamming shut after everyone departed.

xxxx

Everyone at the hospital was appalled and revolted to hear about Vivian's actions, and they thoroughly encouraged the quartet to go to the museum in search of the pearls.

"We'll all hold the fort down here," Crump assured them. "Wow, I never thought I wouldn't find a pretty, young girl attractive, but somehow I don't think this Vivian could even get anywhere with me!"

"I would hope not, after what she just tried to do," Gansley grunted.

Téa looked on fire. "I always knew she was bad news!" she exclaimed. "I thought she couldn't stoop any lower than hurting Mr. Muto and forcing Yugi to duel her to save him, when she claimed she cared about Yugi!" She gripped her arms. "But someone like that can always stoop lower!"

Mokuba clenched his fists. "I'll make sure Seto never invites her to a tournament again!" he spat.

Everyone's eyes flickered with sadness. At this point, they still didn't know if Seto would ever be getting up again, let alone hosting another tournament. But they knew Mokuba was all too aware of that. There was no need to point it out.

xxxx

Ishizu and Mr. Bakura were back at the museum when the little group arrived. They were still going through the contents of the missing man's office, but from their grim expressions they hadn't had much, if any, luck.

"We still can't reach him at the hotel where he was supposedly staying, nor on his cellphone," Ishizu lamented.

"And there's nothing here about the magical objects," Mr. Bakura sighed. "I don't know that they're really magical, or that he knew if they are."

"Do you know if he knew Vivian Wong?" Atem asked.

"I don't know why he'd have any reason to know her," Mr. Bakura said.

"You even know who that is?" Joey blinked in surprise.

"The thief . . . er, Yami Bakura . . . had some disparaging remarks to make about her," Mr. Bakura replied, shifting uncomfortably. Apparently he still found it difficult to know how to address the character.

"I'm sure he did," Atem mused. "Well, we need to see the objects that made it into the exhibit. We met up with Vivian and she claims the pearls in the set contain the antidote."

"Only she has one of the objects herself, so we don't know how reliable her information is," Lector said.

"To say nothing of how completely repulsive she is," Nesbitt snarled. "I wouldn't trust anything she says."

"But right now we have no other choice," Atem sighed.

"Of course. We'll take you to the exhibit now." But Ishizu's brow furrowed in her concern. "You say she has one of the items?!"

"The fan," Atem said. "She claimed it showed her visions. She could be lying about that too, of course, and maybe her fan is only a reproduction of the original, but then that begs the question of how she knew all about what happened to Kaiba, as she clearly did."

"Mr. Kaiba's employees have been trying to keep it as hush-hush as they possibly can," Lector said.

"I'm afraid we must believe that her item is real," Ishizu said.

"That's what I was afraid of," Joey moaned.

They all headed down the corridors, their shoes echoing on the walls and ceilings. When at last they arrived at the exhibit, Mr. Bakura took out his master keys and unlocked the case. "Here are the pearls," he said. "But I don't know how you're going to open them to find out if they contain anything valuable."

Joey grabbed them. "She said we just break them open!" he exclaimed.

"Pearls are very strong," Ishizu said. "A normal pearl won't easily break."

"Well, they can't be normal if they've got the antidote in them instead of whatever normal pearls have in them!" Joey countered. He slammed several of the beads hard into the wall. Mr. Bakura winced, but nothing happened.

"Maybe they twist open?" Atem suggested.

Joey tried that next, to no avail.

"I suppose, since magic created them, it's possible that only magic can open them," Ishizu said.

Nesbitt looked disgusted. He hated magic almost as much as Seto did.

"No problem!" Joey waved the necklace at Atem. "Come on, use your Infinity Puzzle and break it open!"

Suddenly Atem felt overwhelmed. "I'll most certainly try." He concentrated hard, pooling all of his energy and willpower into the Infinity Puzzle's power. _Please . . . do this and open the pearls to reveal their secret!_ But the necklace remained stubbornly closed.

Joey visibly wilted. "No! . . . Work! Work, you hunk of junk!" He was screaming equally at both the pearls and the Puzzle, but neither obeyed.

"It's no use," Nesbitt finally said. "Either that tramp switched them or she lied to begin with."

Lector rubbed his forehead. "She said we'd need her to save Mr. Kaiba. I don't want to believe her, but now she truly is our only lead."

Atem sighed. "I wish the Infinity Puzzle could sense whether these objects truly have magic powers or if they're fakes."

"Let's see the pendant," Nesbitt said at last.

Mr. Bakura dug through the exhibit until he found it. "Here it is. . . ."

"Aha! It _has_ to be a fake!" Nesbitt grabbed it and waved it at Lector. "It looks just like what that madman had on the cliff! But that one was real and it went over the side with him!"

Lector reached for the pendant to steady it. "It does look identical," he said slowly.

"Then it's fake!" Joey wailed. "They're probably all fakes! That nutcase stole them all and replaced them with cheap replicas!"

"It is starting to look that way," Mr. Bakura snarled. "And not that I want magical objects on display, but if they're not here, where on Earth are they?!"

"We could try his house," Atem said. "If he was the man on the cliff, he obviously didn't get away with them as he had hoped to. The rest may be there."

"It's worth a try!" Nesbitt said. "Anything to avoid seeing that tramp again! Let's go!"

Mr. Bakura quickly collected the address. "I'll come with you," he said. "If he stole from the museum, I have a right to know it."

"And I want to help as well," Ishizu said.

"By the way, do you know where your son is?!" Joey asked Mr. Bakura as they dashed outside to their cars. "He was supposed to show up at the medical center, but he hasn't!"

". . . Oh." Mr. Bakura took out his phone and looked at it. "Well, he hasn't tried to call me again. . . . No, I don't know where he is." He frowned. "I hope he's not in trouble too. . . ."

"If he is, let's hope Yami Bakura can get him out of it," Atem said.

"They might _both_ be in trouble," Joey retorted. "Mai too!"

"Great," Nesbitt growled. "That's all we need."

Atem's eyes flickered with concern. They had been so occupied worrying about Seto that they hadn't really focused much on the strange absences. But as he tried to reach Bakura himself and failed, he started to wonder if said absences were actually just as important.

xxxx

The Bakuras and Mai, meanwhile, had been heading for the medical center after receiving the news about Seto when they were indeed waylaid. Two familiar figures suddenly somersaulted down into the road from above, forcing their cars to stop in the intersection.

Yami Bakura promptly leaned out the window. "What is the meaning of this?!" he snapped.

"Oh dear," Bakura groaned. "Can it be? . . ."

"Greetings, you, who wish to pass," the first intoned.

"It will not be allowed no matter how you sass," said the second.

Bakura shrank back in his seat. "It is. . . ."

Now Mai was annoyed too. "Hey, we've got a very important engagement here!" she snapped, leaning out her car window. "I already beat you two on the Great Wall!"

"The Paradox Brothers, Para and Dox." Bakura facepalmed and shook his head. "What on Earth. . . ."

"And it is that we wish to discuss," said Para.

"A rematch will be had without a fuss," Dox finished.

Mai got out of her car. "I Tag Dueled you with Vivian Wong in China," she reminded them. "She's not here!"

"Then team with another," said Para.

"Such as that boy's older brother!" Dox finished, pointing at Yami Bakura.

"It is really you we wish to face," Para said to Mai.

"Vivian Wong is a disgrace," Dox adjoined.

"Actually, Vivian may be a pain as a person, but she's a good Duelist," Mai frowned.

Yami Bakura sneered. "And you want _me_ to tag with _her?_"

"That is correct," Para smirked.

"Ready your decks!" Dox added.

"Yami, we don't have time for this," Bakura protested. "And your deck and Mai's hardly fit together at all! How will you make a good Tag Team?!"

"That is the true test of your ability," Para said.

"To duel with another in civility!" Dox displayed his Duel Disk.

Yami Bakura got out of the van, grabbing his Duel Disk as well. "Since they aren't giving us much choice, I'll go ahead with this duel," he told Bakura. "Somehow I think there's more going on here than meets the eye. These two don't duel just to duel."

". . . You're right," Bakura realized. "They're card professors, usually hired to duel on behalf of someone else!"

"And the only way to get to the bottom of why is to follow through with what they want," Yami Bakura continued.

Mai nodded. "Well, if you're game, so am I," she said. "But I've never Tag Dueled with anyone other than Vivian. If you hold me back, I'll cut out on my own."

"That makes two of us," Yami Bakura grinned.

Bakura got out of the van too, forgetting his phone on the seat. "I don't like this," he said. "Why would someone hire Para and Dox to duel Mai?! And what if they wanted you too, Yami? Maybe stopping us both wasn't just because it was the first time they could get to Mai! It seems too much of a coincidence to stop two top Duelists! And if they'd waited until we got to the medical center, there would have been a lot more Duelists to choose from!"

"Well," Yami Bakura purred, "we're going to find out."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes: Thanks to Azalea542 and Mega M for plot suggestions!**

**Chapter Four**

Seto had mostly been locked in an unpleasant oblivion ever since he had last fallen unconscious. Sometimes he just laid there. Other times he floated or fell through space and time, surrounded and overwhelmed by memories. The distant past, the more recent past . . . things that had just happened. . . .

Joey had asked why he had done it. He'd had no other choice. Even at his worst he wouldn't have let Joey die if he could do something about it. And now . . . these days . . . Joey was actually someone he cared about. His friend. . . .

But he didn't want to let himself die either. Somehow he had to pull through. Mokuba would never recover from him being gone. Seto had long ago set it up for Ishizu and Rishid to be Mokuba's guardians if anything happened to him, but he knew that even if Mokuba was safe and physically provided for, it would never heal the hole in his heart. He adored and loved Seto too much.

Whatever had been on that knife, or in it, was always trying to drag him down. He kept fighting against it, but it was still there, reaching for him with claws made of shadow and memories.

The memories often took the form of Gozaburo, sometimes echoing things said in the past, sometimes inventing new ways for him to belittle Seto.

"_I can't believe you actually did this!" _he boomed now. His voice bounced off of every invisible wall, at first disembodied, then taking form as he rose from the depths of the darkness to tower larger-than-life over Seto. _"You sacrificed your own safety for that fool you've never even liked?! What have I always taught you?!" _A whip cracked in the darkness, raking over Seto's back. _"What?!"_

Seto hissed in pain. It wasn't real . . . it _wasn't_ real. . . . But the pain felt real anyway, the memory of many horrible nights of alternating physical and emotional punishment whenever he didn't measure up to Gozaburo's expectations. He fell to one knee when the weapon dug into his back again.

"_You'll never be worthy to become the president of KaibaCorp if you can't learn the one simple lesson of how to be ruthless and always put yourself first! And you won't be allowed to sleep tonight. Now you'll have to stay awake and think about what you've done!"_

"No . . ." Seto rasped. He weakly clenched a fist. The next time he felt the whip cutting through the air, he whirled and grabbed it in both hands. He wouldn't let this phantom crumble his spirit and his resolve! Gozaburo was dead and gone. He wasn't really here.

"_You dare defy me?!"_ Gozaburo screamed.

Seto straightened, breaking the whip in half. "Always." He threw the pieces into the abyss.

"_Then I will never let you go!"_ Gozaburo swept out with a giant hand, catching Seto and throwing him into the hole along with the falling pieces of whip.

Terror filled Seto's soul. It wasn't real, but this time he couldn't take control of what he was experiencing. The poison was gaining greater strength.

_I can't die! I __**can't!**__ Mokuba!_

Now he couldn't speak aloud. His voice was choked off as he kept falling.

xxxx

Mokuba drew a shaking breath and pushed open the door to Seto's room. Finally he was being allowed in, but the sight of his brother laying so pale and still almost made him break down right in the doorway. It was a nightmare, the worst possible kind—the kind he could never wake up from.

"Big brother," he whispered.

Seto was laying on his side because of the wound in his back. He had reached out at some point to grab the pillow, and the sleeve of his silk pajama top had pulled back, revealing old scars on his wrist and up his arm.

More tears pricked Mokuba's eyes. He had seen some of those before on occasion, although he had never mentioned them. He knew Gozaburo had done it and that Seto didn't want to talk about it. Usually Mokuba encouraged him to talk about things, but in this case he had always respected Seto's desire for silence and let Seto think he didn't know.

Or maybe he was afraid of what else there was. Maybe part of him couldn't bear to know just how badly Gozaburo had hurt Seto.

"It's me, Seto," he said softly. He climbed onto a chair next to the bed and gently reached for Seto's hand. "I know you'll never stop fighting, but I just wanted to let you know I'm here if you need any extra strength. . . . I'm not gonna leave until you wake up."

He blinked back the tears, but more only came. "We're all here for you, big brother. . . . You've got so many friends now! And we're all trying to figure out how to help save you! We're going to, too. None of us are going to let you go!"

Téa stood by at the doorway, listening but not going in. She wanted to give Mokuba some time alone with his brother. She was also thinking seriously about everything she and Yugi had talked about.

It made sense that Yugi had seen into her heart and soul, after all the years they had known each other. On the other hand, Mai had also figured out what Téa was thinking, judging from some of their conversations in the past. Mai would probably encourage Téa to tell Seto the truth no matter what, but it was hard to get past the barrier of worrying that it would ruin their friendship. Yugi had admitted it was a legitimate concern with Seto. And really, it felt like there were so many more important things to think about right now than the possibility of romantic feelings on her part.

She looked down at her phone. Still no communications from Mai or Bakura. It really was becoming more and more of a worry. Several of them had sent texts or tried to call by now, without any response. What could be happening?!

A footfall made her look up. Marik was standing there, his eyes filled with concern. "How are they?"

Téa drew a heavy sigh. "Kaiba doesn't look good. Mokuba . . . well, he's trying to be strong. He has to believe we're going to save Kaiba. If he really thought there was no hope, I . . . I'm not sure he could go on!"

Marik grimly nodded. "I have feared a time like this ever since I started growing close to Mokuba. I know he would irreparably break without his brother, because I see in them the bond I have with Rishid. Seeing Rishid hurt was what it took for me to completely lose control of myself." He looked away. "Ishizu believed only Atem could save me from my inner darkness, but actually, it was Rishid who gave me the strength to fight. If he hadn't struggled up the tower to appeal to me one last time, I don't think I would have made it back. Atem would have stopped Yami Marik, but I would have been lost, my body a vacant shell. I had no more will to live."

"But . . . you still had Ishizu," Téa frowned.

"And Mokuba still has all of us," Marik said. "Sometimes, even though you love many people, it's one person you have a particular bond with and feel you absolutely can't live without. I've seen Lector and Nesbitt develop such a bond. Even though it would break them to have any of the others gone, I believe they could eventually pull themselves together enough to keep living if they still had each other. But for Lector or Nesbitt to be lost, I'm honestly not sure the other could ever fully start living again. That's how it is for me and Rishid . . . and Kaiba and Mokuba. Nothing can come between those bonds."

"That sounds a lot like co-dependency when you put it like that," Téa said. "But I've seen it too, and . . . I'm guilty of the same thing. . . ."

Marik gave her a wry smirk. "If the people involved love each other romantically, it's usually considered a beautiful manifestation of their love. Why should it be different just if the people have another kind of love?"

"It shouldn't be," Téa said. "I love all of my friends so much, but . . . if I lost Yugi . . . I don't know what I'd ever do. . . ."

Marik nodded. "Because he is that person for you."

Téa shifted. "Only . . . I really think I'd feel the same if Joey or Tristan was gone too. All four of us have that especially close bond, the first ring of friendship we made. . . . And now . . . I . . . I think someone else is falling into that category too . . . the category of me not knowing how to live without them. . . ."

"Kaiba," Marik supplied.

Téa went red. "Did everybody already know before today except me and him?!"

Marik looked amused. "You really don't hide your feelings well. Are you going to tell him?"

Téa looked away. "I don't know. . . . I just don't know how he'd take it . . . because with him, I'm not sure I'm feeling friendship and nothing else. . . ."

"I think you should tell him," Marik said quietly. "You're worried it might damage your friendship. . . . But on the other hand, it might give him even more strength to fight."

"But . . . if Mokuba is the only person he absolutely can't live without . . ." Téa protested.

Marik smiled. "If you can feel that way about multiple people, who's to say he can't as well? I've seen how he has come to your aid on many occasions. And in any case, any loved one can add to a person's strength. Ishizu has certainly done much for me. I didn't have the will to live when Rishid was hurt and I knew it was my fault, but when he came to me and started encouraging me, I remembered all that Ishizu had done as well as him. They both saved me."

"Marik . . ." Téa peered at him. "Do you really think Rishid is the only person you absolutely couldn't live without?"

Marik sighed. "Maybe I'm just telling myself that because I'm afraid of what might happen to me if Ishizu were ever lost to me. At least when she fell into a coma from the Neo-Orichalcos, I was sure I could get her back." He shuddered. "Maybe deep down . . . I fear creating a second Yami Marik. That monster came out of my mind, my darkness. How do I know I don't have the potential to do it again?"

"I don't think that would happen," Téa said softly. "You're stronger now, because of not just your brother and sister, but all of your friends too."

Marik gave her a sad smile. "I hope so." He started to push the door open to go in to Mokuba. "But think about what I've said."

He left Téa standing there with even more on her mind.

xxxx

The missing man's house looked completely deserted when Lector's group arrived.

"So how are we gettin' in this place?!" Joey demanded.

"I have a key," Mr. Bakura said. "He gave it to me in case I needed to get in and retrieve an artifact or information for the museum when he wasn't around."

"So use it already!" Joey exclaimed. "Time's a-wastin'!"

"How strange to hear Joey so worried about Kaiba," Ishizu quietly remarked as Mr. Bakura fumbled to find the right key.

"Yes . . . although he always has been concerned when Kaiba is in danger, even if he doesn't outright admit it," Atem said. "And of course right now he feels even worse since he likely believes he could have prevented this from happening."

Overhearing, Joey growled. "I could've! It _is_ my fault, Atem. Nothing can convince me it's not."

Atem gave a sad sigh.

At last Mr. Bakura unlocked the door and pushed it open. "Alright! Let's pray we find what we need."

Joey ran past him into the living room. "Where would he keep the stuff?!"

"I don't know," Mr. Bakura retorted. "If he was planning to run off with all of the objects, they might be packed in his bedroom."

The sentence was barely finished before Joey went thundering up the stairs. The others spread out to check other rooms. A precious half-hour passed before they all had to sadly concede defeat. If the items were in the house, they simply couldn't find them.

"Oh man! We need Yami Bakura!" Joey burst out. "He could use his Ring compass thingie to pinpoint where they are!"

"That's if it would cooperate," Atem sighed.

Lector leaned against the wall on one elbow, running his hand into his hair. "I can't go back to Mokuba and tell him we couldn't find anything!" he groaned.

"And I guess Johnson hasn't had any luck with the Chinese professors," Nesbitt growled. "He hasn't called. . . ."

"I think we should go looking for the Bakuras and Mai," Atem said. "Joey is no doubt right to be worried about why they haven't come."

"Let's do that then." Mr. Bakura tensely headed for the door. By now he was growing worried about Bakura too, and he wondered just what his son was getting into.

Everyone else trailed after him.

It was Joey who caught sight of something on the stereo just to the side of the door. "Hey, what's this?" He reached and picked up what looked like a metal decorative comb.

Mr. Bakura started and turned. "That's a Chinese hair comb!" he exclaimed. "I think there was one on the list!" He fumbled to get it out of his pocket. "Yes, here it is!"

"And here's the pink and white flowers on it!" Joey held it to the light. "It's part of the set!"

"Of course we still don't know it's real and not a reproduction," Atem said.

"Let's assume the reproductions are all at the museum," Nesbitt flatly replied.

"If only it was the pearls," Lector lamented. "I wonder if there's any chance this one could lead us to the others. . . ."

"It might just be a fluke that it's here," Nesbitt grunted. "Maybe he dropped it and didn't see it. But on the other hand . . . what if he hid all of them in ridiculous places in the house?"

"We'd better look again," Atem said. "I'll have some of the others go look for Mai and the Bakuras." He took out his phone.

xxxx

Yami Bakura was tense. The duel had been long and complex, with he and Mai forced to face the Paradox Brothers' labyrinth dungeon gameplay. Mai was restricted from using any of her Harpies or their Pet Dragon due to the No-Flying Zone rule, so she was focusing on her Amazons. None of her monsters worked well with Yami Bakura's Fiends, although with the different gameplay it didn't matter as much. By this point they had wandered through most of the maze while desperately trying to keep the Brothers from assembling their Gate Guardian. Yami Bakura had used Drop-Off to send one of the cards to the Graveyard, but he wasn't willing to bet they didn't have a way to call it back.

Bakura watched tensely, chewing on his lip. They had been trying to find out who had hired the Brothers all through this duel without success. The duo was being very secretive, not wanting to say anything until the duel was done.

"Hey! Bakura!"

He jumped a mile and turned. Tristan was leaning out the back window of Duke's car. Duke himself was looking out the driver's side, while Serenity sat in between him and David and looked bewildered.

"Nobody can reach you guys," Duke said. "What's going on here?!" He stared at the scene in front of them. "A duel?!"

"Yes!" Bakura exclaimed. "The Paradox Brothers showed up and wanted a rematch with Mai! Apparently she dueled them in China. And they've had her team up with Yami!"

". . . Well, that's different," David commented.

"We need to concentrate," Mai scolded.

"No way," Duke gasped. "And Vivian Wong's in town too! That means all of the Chinese people any of us have ever met are here right now!"

"That seems like too much of a coincidence, if you ask me," Tristan said.

"So you think they're all here for the objects?" Duke asked.

"Probably," Tristan shot back.

Serenity stared at the unfolding duel. "Isn't it kind of strange that they would come here right now and want to duel Mai? If they want the magical objects, why would they bother with a duel first?"

Duke frowned. "I wonder if they think Mai has one of the objects."

"Then wouldn't they have asked her to put it up as the stakes in the duel?" Bakura said.

"You'd think so," Tristan said. "Ugh! I don't get any of what's going on here!"

The Paradox Brothers yelping and Yami Bakura cackling startled all of them. The duel was over; Yami Bakura and Mai had won.

"Oh, thank goodness," Bakura declared.

"You have beat us fair and square," said Para.

"The two of you are quite a pair!" Dox added.

Mai smirked, brushing her hair over her shoulder. "Thank you. And now I think you two owe us some explanations. What's really going on here? Did someone hire you to duel me?"

"And me?" Yami Bakura grunted.

"True be told, we were not paid," Para said.

"We wanted to test how well you played!" Dox finished.

Mai quirked an eyebrow. "You must have had a reason."

"We must stop Vivian Wong from betraying our land," Para said.

"She wishes to wield all China's magic treasures by her own hand!" Dox's eyes flashed with indignation.

"Ah, so you wanted to recruit us to possibly duel against Vivian?" Yami Bakura grunted. "What if we refused?"

"China's . . . magic treasures?" Mai gave them a blank stare now. "Come again?"

"Oh man!" Tristan exclaimed. "Vivian's out to get the items we're after! What if she finds the pearls first?!"

"What if she already has them?" Duke countered.

Mai turned to look at them. "You know what they're babbling about?"

"I think so." Quickly Duke explained, while the Brothers nodded in agreement and confirmation.

"Joey found the hair comb in some creep's house, but that's it. All we want are the pearls to save Kaiba," Tristan said. "You can have them after we get the antidote!"

"If Vivian was really telling the truth about that," Duke snorted.

"She was, I must say," Para said.

"The pearls will allow your friend to see another day," Dox added.

"Joey wrote that the ones at the museum are fakes," Tristan said. "Either that or they just can't figure out how to open them!"

"We will look, but we fear the worst," Para said.

"All of our hopes have surely burst!" Dox headed for the Bakuras' van.

Yami Bakura watched them with a frown. "Are we sure we can trust them any more than Vivian?"

"No, but I'd take them over Vivian any day," Tristan scowled.

"And right now, it's not like we have much choice," Duke said.

Yami Bakura went to the van, taking out his keys as he went. "Do we have any chance of recovering the pearls within the needed timeframe?" he asked.

"If we work together, there is a chance," Para said.

"Unless the real pearls are in Paris, France," said Dox.

"And what would they be doing there?" Yami Bakura grunted. "Is Vivian not the only person we have to watch out for?"

"The man who tried to drag Démas Lector to his doom," Para began.

"May have already shipped some items to another room," Dox concluded.

"Oh, let's hope not," Tristan groaned. "It's going to be hard enough to stop Vivian right here without worrying about tracking the pearls halfway around the world!"

"Why would she want all the items anyway?" Serenity spoke up.

"To make herself so powerful she thinks no man can resist her?" Duke scoffed. "Who knows."

"It doesn't seem like she'd want power for any reason other than that," David mused. "She has a one-track mind in the gutter."

"We can worry about the Why later," Yami Bakura grunted. "Let's see what's going on first."

The procession set out for the museum, all worrying what they would find.

xxxx

At the hospital, Johnson was still tensely trying to get in touch with the professors Nesbitt had located. He was all too keenly aware of the time ticking away, and he was growing more and more distressed the more he couldn't get hold of them. At last he had found a phone number for one, but it had gone to an answering machine. He had left a message, but there was still no reply.

"It's hopeless," he exclaimed to Gansley. "This is never going to work!"

Gansley was staring at his phone. "According to this text from Serenity, the Paradox Brothers are in town and trying to keep Vivian Wong from collecting all of the items. No one is sure they're trustworthy either, but if they are, they may know details about the items that the professors might or might not."

"So what should I do?" Johnson wondered.

"Keep trying," Gansley said. "We should have multiple angles to work with, if at all possible."

"I wonder what the comb does that Joseph found, provided it's real," Johnson mused.

"I guess sooner or later we'll find out," Crump said. "If the book doesn't say. . . ." He picked it up and looked at the pages; Lector had left it open on the spread about the Chinese objects. But soon he scowled in frustration. It didn't say anything about the comb's power. "I guess we're lucky it said anything about the dagger," he frowned. "Nothin' else is mentioned much."

Gansley looked to Yugi. "Have you had any luck about your grandfather?"

"He said he might know someone, but he's not sure," Yugi said. "He's going to try to reach them."

Johnson looked up at the clock. "There's so little time left. . . ."

"We'd better do a lot more of the praying," Crump gulped. "And hope that'll improve the odds. . . ."

"It's worked pretty well in the past," Yugi said with a weak smile. "We'll just have to hope it's not Kaiba's time to go. . . ."

"How could it be?" Crump snorted. "That poor little kid bein' left all alone like that. . . ."

But everyone knew there were many cases when families were separated by death—even Seto and Mokuba's in the past, when their parents had died. There were really no concrete answers to be had. They could only keep trying to work towards a solution while praying for help and guidance.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes: Thanks to Azalea542 for plot suggestions!**

**Chapter Five**

It was to no one's surprise but everyone's discouragement when they arrived at the museum and the Paradox Brothers insisted all the objects there were fake. Tristan, however, still had his suspicions in spite of figuring they had to trust the Brothers.

"You know," he said, "after the stunts you pulled at Duelist Kingdom, you could just be lying to get the items' powers for yourselves."

"We could, but we are not," Para said.

"This is a completely false lot," Dox said, holding up the pendant.

Yami Bakura growled. Without much hope, he looked down at the Infinity Ring. "Well? Will you cooperate and lead us to the real pearls?"

As he had really expected, it stayed silent. He swore in Egyptian, while Bakura sighed. At times like these, it felt like Yami Bakura would never be able to get the Ring to give him its full power.

"So what do we do now?" Mai frowned.

"We must find the thieves without further delay," Para said.

"And duel if we must to make them pay!" Dox added.

"Yeah, but if the guy really is the creep who tried to kill Lector, he's already dead," Duke said. "I think Mr. Bakura is on his trail looking for the items he stole."

"Which means we'll need to focus on Vivian," Mai said. "She can always be sidetracked by a guy she likes. Apparently right now she's after Lector, but I'm not so sure she's no longer interested in Kaiba, no matter what she says. What if she wants to cure him herself in the hopes that he'll fall in love with her?"

"Well, I guess it's better than trying to force guys to be her love slaves," David mused.

"But that would mean she'll show up at the medical center and try to get in!" Duke exclaimed.

"So we should go there and tell them, and try to set up a situation where she'll feel secure enough to sneak in," Yami Bakura said.

"Then that is what we'll do," Para nodded.

"And soon she will be filled with rue," said Dox.

"Let's hope we won't be," Tristan muttered.

"Um . . ." Serenity looked worried. "None of these items have a love potion, do they?"

Everyone started. They hadn't thought of that! Such a concoction would be a weapon in Vivian's hands.

"There is no such thing," Para snorted.

"No potion can make one wear a ring," Dox insisted.

"Except . . . what is such a potion if not mind-control?" Yami Bakura mused. "It bends your will to another's."

". . . There is an item that is cause for great caution," Para finally admitted.

"It is said its power includes brainwashing," Dox said.

"Which one is that?!" Serenity gasped.

"We are not sure, but we believe," Para began.

"That the comb has the power to deceive," Dox finished.

"That's what Joey said they found at the guy's house!" Tristan remembered.

"Then Vivian will stop at nothing to get it from them," Mai said grimly. "And she'll probably want that before she goes to Kaiba. If he doesn't fall in love with her from her healing him—which he wouldn't—she could use the comb on him and not give him a choice!"

"Then let's go already!" Tristan yelped. "We've gotta find them before she does!"

No one protested.

xxxx

At the man's house, no other items or clues to their whereabouts had been located. Joey felt like digging the comb into his hair in frustration.

"This is crazy!" he burst out. "Where could they be?!"

"A safe deposit box at the bank, maybe?" Lector suggested. It was, perhaps, a long shot, but it was something they could try.

"We won't be able to get in until morning," Mr. Bakura groaned. "Several more hours will have passed by then."

"Mr. Kaiba could make them let him in early," Lector remarked. "Maybe someone representing him could do the same thing. I could speak with Roland. . . ."

"Anything's worth a try!" Joey exclaimed. "I mean, if the bank knows there might be stolen goods from the museum, they'd let us look, right?!"

"I hope so." Lector took out his phone and dialed Roland.

Mr. Bakura sighed, running a hand into his hair. At least now they knew through text messages that Bakura and his friends were safe, but that still left them with the original problem of saving Seto. And something else was troubling him now. From Ishizu's eyes, it was on her mind too.

"From the things the Paradox Brothers have been saying, it sounds almost as though these items are national treasures of China," Ishizu said. "How did they end up for sale and over here, unless they were stolen and put on the black market?"

"And if they were, who could have done such a thing?" Mr. Bakura mused. "Worse, if it's learned they were bought and sent here, it could cause an international incident!"

"I'll see what I can find out through my government contacts," Ishizu determined.

Nesbitt growled. There was little doubt in his mind that the missing man was indeed the one who had tried to kill Lector in the canyons. And regardless if he was or not, all of this talk about the incident and seeing the fake pendant was bringing all those unpleasant memories to the surface again. He had just thought they were healing. Although Lector didn't give any indication of it, he was sure his friend found it upsetting too—or that he would when he didn't have to focus on what was happening to Seto Kaiba.

At last Lector hung up. "Roland will try to get the bank president to let us in early," he reported. He sighed. "At least he can tell the honest truth that there might be an antidote to a mysterious poison in the safe deposit box, instead of having to say anything about ancient magic."

"That should work, unless the guy's completely heartless!" Joey exclaimed.

His phone dinged and he looked down at it. "What the heck?!"

"Now what?!" Nesbitt growled.

"The Paradox Brothers think this comb can brainwash people!" Joey said in horror. "And that maybe Vivian will come after it to use it on Kaiba!"

"Or Lector?!" Nesbitt burst out.

"There's enough of us here that we should certainly be able to overpower one girl," Mr. Bakura objected.

"Unless the fan isn't the only object she has and she uses something on us that's more dangerous," Lector said in concern.

"On the other hand, if we could figure out how to make it work, couldn't we use the comb on Vivian to make her leave us alone?" Nesbitt said. "Or even to get her to give us the real pearls, if she has them?"

"I would hesitate to ever use the powers of brainwashing, even for good," Ishizu frowned.

Joey frowned too. When he personally knew the pain and misery of being brainwashed, he also wasn't sure what to think. But he did know they couldn't let Vivian get hold of such a device.

From Nesbitt's eyes, that was largely what was on his mind. Perhaps because he had also been brainwashed, he refused to entertain the thought of it happening to him again, or to Lector. Making Vivian experience it for a few minutes didn't strike him as such a terrible thing if it would keep them safe and even give them the means to save Seto.

"Well, there's no sign of her yet," Joey frowned. "Should we keep looking here for more stuff or go back to the medical center while we're waiting for Roland to fix things up?"

"I think we've done all we can here," Mr. Bakura sighed. "We might as well go back while we're waiting for Roland."

They weren't quite back yet when Roland called to inform them that the bank president would allow them to come and look through the man's safe deposit box, which he had indeed visited not long before the incident on the cliff. Immediately they made a detour to the bank, cautiously allowing their hopes to rise again.

Mr. Bakura wasn't too surprised when the box was opened to reveal a small dragon ring and a small lion statue, both of which had been featured in the encyclopedia and both of which bore the pink and white flowers and the Chinese characters. But what was a surprise was the sight of a dagger almost identical to the one that had pierced Seto's back.

"What on Earth?!" He lifted it up in shock. "This can't be here!"

Joey grabbed it. "It's gotta be the reproduction!" he exclaimed. "The real one was left in the crate and almost thrown out, if that creep hadn't found it." His teeth clenched at the memory of the hood telling about finding it.

"Yes! So he must have been unaware of that and thought this was the real one," Ishizu exclaimed.

"But I don't see the pearls anywhere in here," Lector lamented. He dug through the box in desperation. "They're just not here!"

Nesbitt snarled. "We should have known it would never be this easy."

The bank president stood uncomfortably to the side. "Are at least some of these objects stolen from you?" he asked.

"Yes," Mr. Bakura said. "This figurine and this ring were both bought by the museum. So was a dagger that looked like this, but we have the real one." He straightened, holding the objects. "Was anything else brought in when he came? A string of pearls is still missing."

"This was all," the president helplessly replied. "The man from KaibaCorp said something about an antidote to a deadly poison being hidden inside the pearls?"

"That's right, and that's what we have to find," Mr. Bakura exclaimed. "Someone is going to die within hours if we can't get it back!"

"I don't know what else to tell you," was the distressed answer. "He definitely didn't bring a string of pearls."

The group left only marginally relieved to have found any of the objects, and mostly distraught that the most important one was still missing.

"All we can assume is that Vivian has the pearls," Mr. Bakura said. "And she still hasn't come after us about the comb, so maybe our best bet really is to go to the medical center and hope that she'll come to try to heal Kaiba herself."

"I guess so," Lector sighed.

"And hopefully the Paradox Brothers will know what these items do," Ishizu said. "We may need their assistance against Vivian."

"I just hope we can really trust those nutty brothers," Joey frowned. "I dunno that I do. They're both real shady characters! How do we know they don't want all this stuff for themselves?!"

"We don't," Mr. Bakura said.

"I'll start calling around to try to find out how the items were stolen and sold in the first place as soon as we get back," Ishizu said.

"What if Vivian stole them herself?" Nesbitt suggested. "Then maybe she struck up a deal with this guy at the museum and they were supposed to split the take. Maybe the pearls were part of her half."

"Makes sense to me," Joey said. "But man, she's gonna be in a lot of trouble with the Chinese government if she's the one who stole them!"

Nesbitt sneered. "After the proposition she tried to make, that sounds good to me."

Lector had to smirk. He couldn't say he didn't feel the same.

xxxx

Everyone managed to converge back at the medical center without any move having been made by Vivian. Mokuba was still in with Seto, who hadn't shown any noticeable change. The groups stood around, tense and concerned and not sure what to do next.

"You know, we really don't know that Vivian's going to try to come here and heal Kaiba," Duke pointed out as he nervously twirled a piece of hair around his finger.

"No, but I know Vivian," Mai insisted. "I just don't think she'd give up on Kaiba that easily, even if she's also interested in an older man like Lector now."

Yugi cringed. "We've definitely seen that she can be interested in more than one guy at a time."

"How'd you ever end up Tag Dueling with her anyway, Mai?!" Joey demanded.

Mai sighed and looked away. "I felt so lost and alone back then. . . . I was looking for myself and I didn't know how to find her except to duel. I somehow wandered into China and ran across Vivian there. I knew she was the top-ranked Duelist in China, so I thought maybe by training with her I could start putting my life back together again."

"Seems like she would just get you more lost," Joey grunted.

Mai finally smirked. "Well, we sure had different views about life and men. I've always enjoyed using men if it would help me, though, and she did that too, only differently. I would just turn flirtatious smiles and gestures against them, and she wasn't above harming people they cared about if she thought it would get them into bed with her."

"You always had more class than her, Mai," Joey said, even though he blushed a bit as he said it. "I mean, you never acted like a tramp or wanted that kind of attention from guys. You'd just kinda . . . turn their heads with your good looks to get things like fancy rooms . . . just for yourself to stay in, of course."

"And I haven't even done that in a long time," Mai said. "Usually these days it's more about acting tough. But anyway . . ." She shook her head. "Vivian and I found that we could Tag Duel pretty well. We both liked female Warrior cards. But eventually we parted ways when I felt like it was time to move on. Vivian was so shallow as a person that I decided I needed to get away."

"I'm glad you did," Joey said. "Ugh, I just can't believe she even put Kaiba's life on the line tonight just to try to get Lector in bed with her!"

"I can't believe it either," Lector muttered.

"Well, what all do we have that we can use against her?" Joey wondered. "What do these doohickeys do?" He pointed at the dragon ring and the lion statue that the Paradox Brothers had been examining.

"The lion is good for defense and protection," said Para.

"It will send all your enemies in another direction," Dox added.

"So it casts a shield or something?" Joey blinked.

"Or maybe it confuses them," Atem said.

"Either way, that's certainly useful," Mai remarked.

"And the dragon, of course, is the head of them all," Para continued.

"With it, you can make all your enemies fall," said Dox.

"I know dragons are important in Chinese mythology," Mai mused, "but I still don't get what the ring's power is."

"It controls all the rest," Para said.

"Because it is truly the best!" Dox said.

"I think I get it," Yugi said. "All the other objects can be controlled by the dragon!"

Johnson perked up. "So that means that if Vivian got hold of the comb or tried to use it or the fan against us, we could negate its effect with the dragon?"

"Yes, that is correct," Para said.

"It brings the others to their knees from its effect!" said Dox.

"Hmm. Obviously the man from the museum wouldn't have wanted Vivian to have the dragon," Atem realized. "And she would certainly want it if she knew of its effect. He must have kept it back to protect himself."

"And she sure wouldn't mention its effect to us," Joey said. "But she'd have to know about it! She probably came here to get it as well to try to get Lector!"

"One thing is for certain, we can't let her know we now have it," Atem said.

"I just thought of something else," Lector exclaimed. "We're only assuming Vivian has the pearls. What if she doesn't?"

"Oh man, don't say things like that!" Joey cried. "If she doesn't have them, then who knows where they are?!"

"It's a legitimate point, unfortunately," Atem sighed. "We really shouldn't believe we have everything figured out and just stand around thinking she'll come."

"Not to mention, even if she does have the pearls, it doesn't mean she'll use them on Mr. Kaiba," Lector said. "As much as I hate to say it, I should probably go out and find her again to question her."

"What?!" Johnson cried. "What if she tries to get at you again?! What if she's the type who would be so determined that once you've rejected her, she'll try to force herself on you?!"

Gansley laid a hand on Johnson's shoulder. The poor man was sadly speaking from personal experience; what his former secretary had tried to do to him several months ago still deeply affected him. Hearing about someone like Vivian would certainly bring those feelings to the surface again. Gansley had feared that very thing, but there hadn't been much chance to discuss it while desperately trying to find a way to save Seto. Not that he wanted to bring it up here in public anyway, and he knew Johnson surely wouldn't.

"She won't have the chance," Nesbitt vowed. "I won't let him out of my sight with her around!"

Lector had to smile, although he hoped Nesbitt wouldn't do anything reckless that would get him hurt. "We'll be alright," he told Johnson. "You just keep trying to find other places where the pearls might be."

Johnson slowly nodded. "Alright. . . ."

"I'll go see Mokuba for a few minutes and then I'll head over to the office building where Vivian was earlier tonight," Lector said.

"And you won't be going alone, that's for sure," Nesbitt retorted.

Lector smiled. "I know."

xxxx

It broke Lector's heart when he quietly went into Seto's room and found Mokuba just holding onto one of the limp hands with tears in his eyes and talking softly to his brother as his voice broke. When he started and looked up at Lector with desperation and hope, Lector's heart only shattered further.

". . . You still don't have the antidote, do you?" Mokuba sadly realized.

"We're still trying to get it," Lector assured him. "I'm going out again now to try to find it, but I wanted to stop in and see you first."

Mokuba shook his head. "There's no change. And . . . I'm so afraid there won't be until it's too late . . . and the change is that he . . ." He choked.

Lector didn't know what to say. He didn't want to give Mokuba false hope and tell him everything would be alright. He had no idea whether it would be or not. What if they really couldn't find the antidote in time?

He laid a hand on Mokuba's shoulder and turned to look at Seto himself. How strange, to see the aloof and tough boy laying so pale and still in the bed, completely helpless. In the past Lector had wanted to see Seto cut down to size, but not like this. He had wanted Seto to recognize how cruel he had been, to pay for his misdeeds. And . . . Seto did recognize it now, and had even expressed sorrow for it. Lector didn't want to see him so sick . . . and Mokuba so heartbroken. . . .

Still clutching Seto's hand, Mokuba turned and buried his face in Lector's suitcoat. "I'm so scared, Lector," he sobbed. "What if he really does die?"

Lector held him close. "I don't know, Mokuba," he said quietly. He knew it was true, what Marik feared—that Seto's death would break Mokuba for good. The boy was too young to cope with a tragedy like that.

He shut his eyes tightly. What if he had ever managed to separate the brothers by trapping Seto in virtual reality? He had believed Mokuba was better off without Seto, but now he knew the truth was just the opposite. What he had tried to do haunted him now.

"I can't even ask something like if you'll always be here," Mokuba said. "Nobody's able to stay forever. . . ."

Suddenly Lector couldn't help remembering what Makarios, Mokuba's ancestor, had told them about their Atlantean blood possibly allowing them all to live longer than most humans, provided nothing violent happened. "I can certainly try, Mokuba," he said. "And I know your brother is trying with all his might. Maybe, just maybe, we'll both make it."

"I hope so," Mokuba whispered.

xxxx

It was with a heavy heart that Lector returned to the office building, thankfully in the company of Nesbitt. He didn't want to see Vivian again. But it looked as though she was unfortunately right, that they needed her to save Seto—or at least, they needed what information she could potentially give them.

The doors were still unlocked, and they slid open as the duo stepped into the lobby and looked around.

"I don't see her," Nesbitt growled. "Maybe she's not here."

"She must be," Lector frowned.

"You're right," Vivian suddenly purred from behind them. A hand reached out, touching the hair Lector kept gathered at the back of his neck. "Ooh, you should wear this loose! It's amazingly soft!"

Lector went stiff. He grabbed Vivian's hand as he turned to face her. "Do you have the pearls?!" he demanded.

Instead of pulling free, Vivian tried to curl her fingers around Lector's hand. "I thought you were going to the museum to get them," she replied.

"They're fake!" Nesbitt snarled. "Give us a straight answer!"

Lector drew a deep breath, fighting to keep control of his temper and his patience. Both were paper-thin at the moment. "Please," he managed to say. "Seto Kaiba will die without the antidote! His brother wouldn't be able to stand it without him! If you have the real pearls, bring them to his room and help us heal him before it's too late!"

Vivian sighed. "I don't have them," she grudgingly admitted.

"Do you know where they are?!" Nesbitt retorted.

"No," she said. "I've been looking for them too!"

"Then why did you tell us we needed you to save Mr. Kaiba?!" Lector boomed. His patience was finally spent.

"Because I wanted you to need me for something!" she finally cried. "And . . . I thought I really could lead you to them . . . probably. . . ."

"Then at least you have some ideas of where to go?" Lector towered over her with folded arms.

"I've been looking everywhere I can think of," she said, "but they can't have gone far!"

"Did you conspire with a man from the museum to steal them in China and bring them over here?" Lector asked. "Is that really why you came here?"

Vivian looked away with a scowl. "I'm not saying anything more unless you agree to at least take me on a date."

Lector recoiled in disgust. But as much as he didn't want anything to do with this person, he knew he couldn't let his pride get in the way of anything that might possibly help Seto. "If you actually help us and don't betray us, maybe I'll consider it," he said.

Nesbitt shot him a Look.

"But nothing else?" Vivian sighed. "Are you really as pure as your friend says, or is it just me, that you're not interested in me?"

Lector frowned. This was really not an area he wanted to get into with someone like her, yet on the other hand he wanted to make his standards clear. "I am pure in the way he meant it," he replied, "but I have many faults. And I'm not interested in you after the way you've acted."

Vivian sighed in resignation. "Okay. I didn't steal the items," she said. "Actually, I was hired to get them back."

"Hired by who?" Lector persisted. "The government?"

"Someone I know in the government," Vivian said. "I was supposed to find the guy who stole them and pretend to work with him to find where he had them all. But so far I've only found this." She took out the fan again.

"Then why did you think you could lead us to the pearls?!" Nesbitt snarled.

"Because they have to be in the city along with all the other stuff!" Vivian insisted. "I don't know. . . . Maybe he was working with someone else too and was double-crossing me!"

Nesbitt growled and stepped closer to Lector. "We have no reason to trust anything she says," he said in a loud whisper. "She might be working with him, but because she wants the things for herself."

"I don't trust her either, but at this point I don't know what to do," Lector told him. He looked back to her and said louder, "If you don't do everything you can to help us find the pearls in time, or if you deliberately mislead us in any way, I will hold you as an accessory to Seto Kaiba's murder. And I can promise you won't like that one bit."

Vivian flinched. "I'll help!" she promised.

Lector sighed. "Supposing the pearls are the only thing missing," he said. "Why would he specifically make them so hard to find?"

"They're not the only things missing," Vivian said. "I think he picked several different locations and hid them all around, so that even if some were found, others would stay lost!"

"Oh, that's just great," Nesbitt growled.

"Have you been to all the locations?" Lector asked her.

"All that I know of," Vivian frowned.

Lector sighed. "I wonder if there's any chance that . . ." He trailed off.

"Any chance what?" Nesbitt demanded.

"Maybe he hid the pearls in the canyons, someplace near where he tried to use the pendant," Lector said. "Supposing that was him. We still don't know that either, although it's looking more and more likely."

"We'll have to try," Nesbitt said. "Let's do that next."

Lector looked at the clock. "We'll have to go now. Waiting until morning would be too chancey. Mr. Kaiba was stabbed in the afternoon."

Nesbitt nodded. "There'll be snow, but at least it's not snowing, so if we take strong lights we should be able to see. He couldn't have hid them that far away from where we fought him."

Vivian took a step forward. "Am I coming?"

Lector gave her a hard look. "Why don't you stay in town and try to think of any more places? If you do, tell our friends across the street and one of them will call us."

She made a face. "You won't even give me your phone number?"

"Not unless I have to," Lector replied.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes: Thanks to Azalea542, Mega M, and Yuri for plot suggestions!**

**Chapter Six**

The rest of the group was disturbed when Lector and Nesbitt returned to the medical center and told what Vivian had said and what they had decided to do next.

"So now she claims she's working for the government?!" Téa, who had returned to the waiting room, cried. "But Joey said the Paradox Brothers claimed she wanted all the items for herself!"

"Well, that figures," Nesbitt growled.

"It's possible they're working independently of each other and are all trying to return the objects," Atem said. "On the other hand, it's equally possible that some or all of them are lying."

"_AURGH!"_ Joey messed up his hair with both hands. "We don't know who to believe!"

"I say we can't fully trust any of them," Atem said.

"Where did the Paradox Brothers go, anyway?" Nesbitt frowned.

"They said they were going to shadow Vivian and see what she did if she left the office building," Mai said. "Naturally, we sent someone to shadow them."

"Yami," Bakura supplied.

Atem shook his head. "What a tangled web."

Lector heaved a sigh. "Well, as much as I hate to leave you to deal with all of them, Nesbitt and I have to get to the canyons and look around for the pearls."

Gansley sighed too. "Yes, you'd better do that."

"And you'd better collect Yami Bakura to go with you," Atem said. "Just in case he can get that blasted Ring to behave and point the way to the pearls." He got up. "I'll replace him as the one watching the Brothers."

"Good idea," Yugi said.

"I'll come too," Bakura offered.

"You're not leavin' without me!" Joey jumped up.

"Or me," Téa said. It was better than waiting around helplessly, unable to really do anything.

"I'll go," Johnson said. He stood, passing Nesbitt's phone back to him. "I'm not having any luck with any of those professors. I probably won't until morning, if then."

Gansley was sure Johnson also wanted to go in order to stay as far away from Vivian as possible. That sounded like a good idea to him. "Go ahead," he said. "We'll stay here and keep trying to find other ways to help."

Johnson managed a weak smile. He could see Gansley understood.

Duke, David, and Serenity also decided to go with the departing group. After making the switch with Atem and Yami Bakura, they were all in Gansley's limousine and heading for the canyons.

Lector looked to Johnson in concern once they started out. "How are you holding up?" he quietly asked. "I hated to have to tell you anything about Vivian. . . . I was afraid it would be too painful for you."

"We all needed to know," Johnson sighed. "I'll be alright. . . . I just felt I needed to get away for a while. . . . Not that I really think she would be interested if she saw me, but . . ." He shuddered.

Lector laid a hand on his shoulder.

"There's no reason why she couldn't be interested in you as well as Lector," Nesbitt grunted. "But for all our sakes, we'll have to hope she'll drop all this nonsense."

The others fully agreed. Johnson hadn't wanted any of the kids to know about what had happened to him, but they had learned about the sexual assault anyway and they had all been very supportive as he had tried to heal from the horror and trauma.

"I wish we really knew who to believe in this mess," Lector lamented. "Not knowing who to trust makes it very difficult."

"We can't trust any of them," Duke muttered. "None of them have given us reason to trust them, and now their stories contradict each other."

"I don't know who to trust either," Serenity said. "I might think the Paradox Brothers are more likely telling the truth, but after what Téa said they did in Duelist Kingdom, I just don't know. That would have been horrible if everyone had been left to wander through the tunnels!"

"Yeah, and with the way Pegasus was acting, there's no guarantee he would've let everyone out!" Joey exclaimed.

No one else knew what to believe either. They sighed and looked out at the winter night as they drove on.

xxxx

Mokuba looked up as the door opened and Marik quietly came in with a sack from a nearby fast food restaurant.

"You need to eat," Marik encouraged him. "I know you don't feel like it, but your brother would never want you to start wasting away because of him."

Mokuba managed a smile. "I know. . . . Thanks." He accepted the bag and opened it. Marik didn't like meat, so it was especially moving to him that his friend would go out to get this knowing it was something Mokuba liked. He unwrapped and bit into the cheeseburger and suddenly realized he was hungry. He started to devour the food with relish.

Marik smiled too and sat down in another chair. "Everyone is trying with all their might to find the antidote," he said.

"It means so much to me that they're trying so hard to save Seto," Mokuba said softly. "But things are so much different now than they were. . . . We're all friends now." His eyes sparkled with a bit of happiness at the memories. "So I mean . . . it's not like they're only doing it for me or something. . . . They really want to save him."

"Yes," Marik agreed.

Mokuba fell silent for a few minutes as he ate, munching in delight on the thick, crispy fries. ". . . Marik . . . ? You know I told you about my ancestor from Atlantis, Makarios, telling the Big Five and me that we had some Atlantean blood and maybe we'd all live longer if nothing violent happened. . . . Do you think that could be true?"

Marik blinked in surprise. But then, he supposed, it was a reasonable question under the circumstances. "It could be," he said carefully.

"I hope you and Ishizu and Rishid had Atlantean ancestors too," Mokuba said.

"Ordinarily I would say it would be too much of a coincidence, but then again, I'm not sure I believe in coincidences anymore," Marik said. "So many strange things have happened. . . . So many meetings that you wouldn't think could happen, and yet they have. . . . We all had ancestors in ancient Egypt, so why not Atlantis as well? Both lands seem to have played such a large part in our fates. Maybe we were all supposed to be together in the present-day because our ancestors in both pasts were all together."

"Yeah." Mokuba looked to Seto. "That's what I hope. But . . . being stabbed by a poisoned knife is something violent happening, so even if we might ordinarily live longer, it wouldn't help Seto now. . . ." His voice caught in his throat.

Marik laid a hand on Mokuba's shoulder. "There's still hope," he said. "I wouldn't give up on anyone yet. Seto is strong, and everyone trying to save him is very determined."

"That's true," Mokuba said. "I guess there's been no news about how things are going right now. . . ."

"No," Marik said, shaking his head. "But Lector's group should have arrived at the canyons by now. They're hoping maybe the pearls were hidden near where they fought that madman several weeks ago."

"I hope so," Mokuba said. "But where could he hide them? In a tree? Under the snow?" He looked away. "If they're under the snow, they'll probably never find them!"

"They might," Marik said. "He likely would have put the pearls into a container to keep them safe, perhaps something metal. The clasp of the pearls is probably metal as well. So if they use a metal detector, they might find them."

"If they're there," Mokuba quietly added.

Marik sighed. "If," he agreed. "But let's keep hoping for the best. Rishid taught me to never stop hoping as long as there's life."

Mokuba smiled. "That's a good thing to believe."

"Yes," Marik said. "It is."

They fell silent again while Mokuba continued to eat.

". . . Marik?" he said again. "Aren't you hungry too?"

"I'll get something," Marik assured him. "Probably some kind of salad, or something with cheese and not meat."

"Just so you get something," Mokuba said in concern.

"I imagine the cafeteria here will be getting a great deal of business tonight and tomorrow," Marik remarked.

Mokuba imagined that too. So many kept coming and going, trying to help Seto. And hardly any of them had eaten yet.

"I hope Seto knows we're all trying to help him," he said.

"I'm sure he knows we all would be," Marik said.

Mokuba nodded. "It's been so hard for him to trust anyone for years, but now he knows all of you care. That's such a really big thing for him."

"I know," Marik assured him.

"Gozaburo hurt him so much, in so many ways," Mokuba said softly. His gaze went back to the visible scars on Seto's arm. "I know he didn't want me to know about all of it . . . and I don't know all of it . . . but I know more than he thinks I do. . . ."

Marik followed Mokuba's gaze and inwardly cringed at the sight. He recognized the scars from whip marks, after what his father had done to Rishid. Rishid, of course, tried to hide his scars from Marik, knowing Marik had enough to deal with, but Marik had seen them as they had healed, having insisted on being the one to take care of them. It turned his stomach with sickened horror and outrage that his father had been so cruel and had hated Rishid so much just because he wasn't related to them. Sometimes he wondered why he even still loved the man and why his death had affected Marik so deeply that he had set out to take revenge on the Pharaoh for it. Maybe it hadn't even been for his father so much as it had been for the entire family, all the millennia of blind servitude and loyalty, and how it had seemed a sadistic, twisted irony and a show of complete ingratitude to kill one whose loyalty had been especially unceasing.

Of course, now he knew that it had been Yami Marik, not the Pharaoh, who had killed his father. That was a burden he would always have to live with—although on the other hand, Rishid would have been killed if he hadn't interceded. But Yami Marik had killed out of sadistic delight and cruelty, not a desire to save Rishid. He would have killed Rishid next.

He shook himself back to the present. "Your brother wanted to keep you free from the burdens of the harshness and cruelty of the world for as long as possible," he said. "I'm sure he'll never discuss it willingly." Rishid had always borne his pain and sorrow alone too.

"I'm sure too," Mokuba said. "I wish he would, though, if it would help him. . . . But on the other hand . . . I'm not sure I could handle knowing just how bad he was treated. . . ."

"I understand," Marik said quietly.

"I wish he'd talk to someone about it, even if it's not me," Mokuba continued. "Maybe Téa. But I guess he wouldn't want to tell her either. Maybe he'd talk to you, or Rishid. . . ."

"Maybe," Marik said noncommittally, although he couldn't imagine Seto doing that either. "If he wanted to, I would be willing," he added.

Mokuba smiled. ". . . Seto actually invites Téa to do things with us sometimes. It's so neat! He's never felt like doing that with anyone before."

"That's wonderful," Marik said.

"I think it would be neat to have Téa as a sister," Mokuba said, blushing a bit.

"She's a very kind and thoughtful person," Marik said.

"And I'd like if you and I were brothers, but . . ." Tears pricked Mokuba's eyes again. "That would only happen if Ishizu and Rishid got custody of me because Seto . . ." He shook his head. "So I could never want that. . . ."

"Of course," Marik said. "But we can think of each other as brothers anyway. And keep praying that Seto will be alright. . . ."

Mokuba nodded. "I sure am," he said softly.

xxxx

The search in the canyons had not been going well. Nesbitt had indeed thought to bring a metal detector, but it wasn't turning anything up, nor was the Infinity Ring cooperating. And both digging blindly through the snow and checking every tree for a hollowed-out space was taking much too long.

Joey was about at his wit's end. "_AURGH!_ It's no use!" he finally screamed. "If it's here, we're not gonna find it until Spring!"

"We have to find it!" Téa screamed back. "It's Kaiba's only hope!"

"Vivian might still be lying that she doesn't have the pearls!" Joey said.

"If she is, then maybe she'll still try to use them on him herself," Nesbitt pointed out. "But meanwhile, we have to keep looking!"

"This just isn't working out!" Joey exclaimed. "Time's running out and we need to come up with another plan for finding those things!"

"Well, right now we don't _have_ another plan!" Téa snapped. She turned away as a helpless tear slipped down her cheek. ". . . Oh Joey, I'm sorry," she said in subdued chagrin. "I know you're hurting so badly about this. . . ."

"Yeah, and usually you're around to buoy everybody else up and encourage them to keep going," Joey shot back. "You haven't been doing much of that this time!"

Guilt flooded Téa's eyes. "I should have been," she said softly. "It's all been so sudden and I've been so afraid we'll lose him . . . but that's no excuse."

Joey heaved a weary sigh. "Nah . . . it kind of is," he relented. "I've been on edge too. Heck, I'm usually on edge. I know what it's like to feel so helpless and panicky and have it come out as frustration and being ticked off."

So did Nesbitt. He and Joey could certainly understand each other on that point. He turned away, trying to concentrate on resuming the search.

Serenity laid a hand on Joey's shoulder. "Our dad was like that too. I guess you get some of it from him."

"Yeah, probably," Joey admitted. "It was him actin' like that that made Ma divorce him, I think." He frowned. "And maybe why she just agreed to let us get separated. She probably didn't want me around you, Sis, figuring I'd be a bad influence or something."

Serenity stared at him. "That's what you think, Joey?"

Joey shrugged. "I thought of all kinds of reasons. I know Ma said the only job she could get was several hours away and that's why she took you so far off, but I couldn't really believe that. I figured she just wanted to make sure we couldn't be together. As far as I know, she never even tried to push for gettin' custody of both of us. She just let me go."

Lector clenched his teeth. Maybe it was true and maybe it wasn't, but the thought certainly stabbed him. His family had mostly turned out so awful, not really caring about him when the chips were down. He hated to think of Joey being abandoned like that. . . .

"At least she came back for you," he finally said.

"Yeah, when my dad disappeared and Serenity realized I was livin' all alone," Joey said. "Still don't know what happened to him. . . . Probably mugged in an alley behind a bar somewhere." He snorted. "I reminded Ma of him, and I reminded Dad of her. So neither parent liked me."

"I'm so sorry, Joey," Téa said.

"You should really talk to Mom about all of these things," Serenity said to Joey in concern. "I really can't believe she would have left you behind for these reasons. She told me a while back that she never wanted to leave you, but Dad's lawyer enforced the condition that they each have one of the kids and the judge allowed it because he was still a good parent then."

"Yeah, she's said that to me too, and I've tried to believe it and forgive her and move on," Joey said. "But sometimes I still kind of wonder. . . . Eh, forget about it. There's more important things to focus on." He looked at another tree. "But I don't know any better than before how we're gonna do it."

"Let's keep going for a while longer," Lector encouraged. "But if we still haven't found anything come morning, we may have to switch gears and try to come up with something else . . . somehow. . . ." But he didn't know what. Téa was right that this seemed to be their last hope.

Everyone slowly spread out again, resuming what seemed like a hopeless search.

Yami Bakura had long ago wandered off from the rest of the group, desperately trying to make the Infinity Ring do what it was supposed to and point out the pearls, if they were indeed there.

"Work, you blasted thing!" he snarled.

But it sat silently, never glowing at all.

It was strange as it was to be trying so hard to save Seto Kaiba. He was going along with it because Seto was a valuable ally as well as someone Bakura and the others considered a friend. And because it was no doubt important to collect all of these magic items before they fell into the wrong hands. Or that was what he told himself anyway. He certainly wasn't personally close to the boy. But . . . maybe he was helping out because he was a good little Boy Scout, like his counterpart from the other dimension had mockingly called him.

He wasn't so squeaky clean, really. Everyone knew he was still a character. But they also knew they could trust him to help if needed.

How strange it was.

"Yami?"

He looked up as Bakura came over to him, his eyes hopeful and worried all at once. He could see immediately that there hadn't been any success, and he sighed in resignation.

"I don't know how to make this blasted thing cooperate," Yami Bakura snarled.

"I wonder if it's just random or if there's something different about the times when it works," Bakura mused.

"I don't even remember what times it's worked and what times it hasn't," Yami Bakura said in disgust. "Except for when it led me to you during the White Death mess."

Bakura sighed. "I'd say maybe you have to feel very strongly about whoever or whatever you're trying to find, only there have been many times when that was the case and it still didn't work."

"I know," Yami Bakura grunted. "But it almost seems like it's been working less and less lately. I can't imagine what changed; I haven't been doing anything wrong. And that hasn't always been easy, I can assure you."

That brought a bit of a smile. "You've worked so hard to be good, Yami," Bakura said. "I know you're a little mischievous, but surely that's alright. No one's a plaster saint, after all."

Yami Bakura didn't look convinced. "Maybe a plaster saint is what this thing takes to work right."

"If that were true, Shadi never would have given it to you," Bakura said.

"Well, be that as it may, it obviously has no intention of helping us find those pearls in time to save Kaiba's life," Yami Bakura snarled in utter frustration.

"I think you should try again, Yami," Bakura said. "Put all of your heart and soul into it!"

Yami Bakura grunted. "That doesn't always work either."

"But it's worth a try now, isn't it?" Bakura pleaded. "When things are so dire and nothing else is working?"

Yami Bakura heaved a frustrated and resigned sigh. "Yes, yes. I'll try again." He closed his eyes, concentrating with all his might on the Ring and the power he wanted it to use. Somehow it had to work. It had to show them the way to find the pearls they needed to heal Seto. They needed Seto to live. They _wanted_ him to live.

_He_ wanted Seto to live too. . . .

The Ring activated, prompting him to open his eyes. It was projecting a beam that swirled around before focusing on a path and pointing determinedly that way.

"You did it, Yami!" Bakura exclaimed.

"He did?!" Joey came flying through the snow. "Alright! Let's follow this baby and find those pearls!"

Téa's hopes now soared too. She chased after Joey with increasing joy in her eyes.

Nesbitt regarded Yami Bakura in bewilderment as he and Lector ran over, followed by Johnson and the rest of the group. "How did you do that?" he demanded.

"I hope I can figure it out, so I can do it again," Yami Bakura grunted. "For now, let's do what we must."

They all gave chase, praying the pearls were close. But the more they ran, the more it looked like the beam was pointing the way back down the canyon into the city.

"Are you serious?!" Joey yelled. "All this and it's not even up here?! . . . Wait a minute!" His eyes went wide. "Guys, I just thought of something else that could've happened to the pearls!"

"What, Mr. Wheeler?!" Lector demanded.

"What if the idiot unpacking everything left them behind too and that same gang creep got them?!" Joey said in alarm. "He wanted to sell the knife! What if he wanted to sell the pearls too? Or . . . give them to his girlfriend or something?!"

Nesbitt facepalmed. "Oh great."

"Well, let's find out!" Téa exclaimed. "Come on, everyone! Let's get back in the limousine and follow that beam!"

"And hope that I don't have to stay outside of the limousine for it to work," Yami Bakura said dryly.

But as it turned out, the beam shone right through the limousine, still pointing the right direction. And now it was clearly obvious that it was back towards the city.

"Man, you know, I hope your dad fires whoever was unpacking stuff that day," Joey said to Bakura as they hurried down the mountainside. "To overlook one thing in the crate was bad enough, but if he overlooked two . . . !"

"I also wonder why that man wanting to hoard all the items didn't realize he didn't have the pearls," Bakura frowned.

"Perhaps he did," Yami Bakura countered. "He didn't try to put the fakes of those in his safe deposit box."

"That's true," Bakura realized. "Maybe he was going to look all over for the real ones after getting rid of the Big Five. Thank goodness he didn't succeed in doing that." He shuddered.

"And we don't know for sure he didn't have the real pearls," Yami Bakura pointed out. "The Ring could be leading us to where he hid them."

"We'll soon find out," Johnson said, and hoped that was really true.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Seto was still lying at the bottom of the abyss in his mind. For a while he had struggled to get back out, but the increasing weakness from the poison finally drove him to just collapse and stay down. He could still hear Gozaburo taunting him; now there was nothing he could say or do about it.

"_So, now you see, don't you, Seto? You've come to believe in friendship and love and all of that tripe, but it's not going to save you now! Nothing will save you!"_

Seto clenched his teeth. Maybe it wouldn't, but not for lack of trying. He knew everyone well enough to know that they would be moving Heaven and Earth to save him.

"_You feel it, don't you? The poison weakening your body from every angle? Your senses gradually giving out? It's only going to get worse from here, my boy."_

Seto couldn't deny he definitely did feel it. He could no longer move because of it. He wasn't sure how much time he had left, but it couldn't be much.

He inwardly recoiled at Gozaburo calling him "my boy." Legally it was true, but he knew Gozaburo didn't want the mantle of being his father. And Seto had ceased calling him that after he had stolen Seto's virtual reality technology to use for war.

What if . . . it had been . . . or could be . . . Lector saying it instead of Gozaburo?

_If Lector had been our father . . . maybe . . . we all would have been happier. . . . Maybe . . . I wouldn't have betrayed him and the others . . . and . . . they wouldn't have betrayed me in turn. . . . Mokuba would have had a stepfather who loved him and paid attention to him. . . . And I . . . wouldn't have ended up like this. . . ._ He stared blearily at the scars from Gozaburo's whip on his arm.

It was too late, though, for everything. He didn't want an adult guardian now; he was 16 going on 30 inside, if not older. He preferred looking out for himself and Mokuba. Although . . . Lector could just be like his father regardless of actually being his guardian . . . if he wanted . . . and if he could admit it. . . . Which was unlikely. And he was dying anyway. . . .

"_Yes, that's right, Seto. Give up,"_ Gozaburo sneered. _"They can't save you. Just give in to the darkness. Let it take you."_

"No," Seto finally hissed.

He would hold out for as long as he possibly could. They were all fighting for him. He would fight too.

xxxx

Serenity was worried about Joey as they barreled towards the city. She was glad that he had finally spoken of his bottled-up hurt towards their mother, but she knew he never would have said it to her unless he felt pushed to his absolute limits. He always tried not to talk about the woman to Serenity, knowing Serenity didn't carry the same anger towards her that he had.

Serenity had, however, been completely heartbroken and it had taken months for her to be able to deal with not being able to be with her beloved brother every day. When she had finally started to try to live again, she had become much more quiet and reserved. Her mother had quickly realized the separation never should have been done, but she hadn't seen any way to quit her job and return to Domino City back then. Serenity tried to focus on and be grateful for the fact that they finally had come back after Mr. Wheeler's mysterious disappearance, feeling there was no other choice then, but she couldn't help wondering what would have happened if her mother had put her children's happiness first years ago. Serenity's heartbreak and changed personality hadn't been enough reason to try to look for a job closer to Domino or in Domino.

She sighed and shook her head. This shouldn't even be thought about right now. Maybe later, after Seto was safe, but not while he was at death's door. The pain and fear of possibly losing him seemed to be dredging up past pains of all kinds for everyone.

Morning was coming on now, although it was an overcast day without a sunrise. They were nearing the city, and heading for an upper middle-class neighborhood.

"Aww man, I think we really might be heading for the home of one of those creeps!" Joey moaned. "He's always bragging how he lives high on the hog!"

"So tell me again how a gang of thugs lives in a high-class neighborhood?" said David.

"Only some of them do," Joey said. "You can have bullies in all walks of life, unfortunately."

Serenity nodded. "At the school I used to go to, there were all kinds of cliques. They bullied without actually getting violent, but it was just as damaging in its own way."

"But these guys do get violent," David shuddered. "We'd better be prepared in case they try to stab any of us with something!"

"Actually, it's funny if they haven't completely skipped town," Joey frowned. "The police tried to round them up and couldn't find them, but would they really leave the pearls behind?"

"Maybe one of them's coming back for them?" Duke suggested.

"Whatever the case, the Ring is pointing right here," Yami Bakura said. He jumped out of the car while it was still moving and headed up the walk of a large three-story house.

"Yami!" Bakura called after him. He leaped out too.

Soon the driver had braked and everyone was hurrying after the duo to the porch. Yami Bakura had already rung the bell. The others arrived just in time to see the door open and a confused woman standing there, a string of pearls around her neck.

"Can I help you?" she asked.

"I hope so," Lector said with a bow. "But I'm afraid it's a long story. . . ."

"Where did you get those pearls?!" Nesbitt suddenly interrupted before Lector could more politely get to the point.

She blinked in surprise. "My son gave them to me. It was very thoughtful of him, wasn't it?"

The group exchanged chagrined looks. How to go about this tactfully?

"We're looking for some pearls that are missing and contain an antidote to a poison," Yami Bakura flatly announced. "The pearls disappeared from an order for the museum, along with a jade knife that was used to stab someone."

Immediately she stiffened. "The police were here," she admitted. "They wanted to talk to Harry, but he wasn't home." Her eyes flashed. "I know he wouldn't have stabbed anyone!"

Joey stepped forward. "It wasn't him," he said. "He was there, but it was his buddy Damien who did the stabbing. Did Harry say where he got the pearls? Maybe Damien gave them to him for safe-keeping or something."

The protective mother frowned. "I guess that's possible. But Harry wouldn't have taken them if he knew they were stolen! He's a good student!"

"He's a bully," Duke said flatly. "He helped cause what happened."

"We need to see if they're the pearls we're looking for," Lector said. "May we? I'm afraid it's very urgent."

She frowned more, but then nodded and started to take them off. "Please do. If anything is wrong with them, I want to make sure Harry is cleared of all wrongdoing concerning them."

"He's an accessory to a far worse crime, even if he didn't do the stabbing," Johnson said.

Yami Bakura accepted the pearls and started to examine them. ". . . The big one in the center can twist in half," he reported. "The antidote must be in there." He didn't dare keep twisting it here, in case it would abruptly open and spill the priceless cargo in the snow.

"Then we have to get them to the medical center right now!" Téa exclaimed.

Now shaken, the woman had to grip the doorframe to keep from stumbling. "My pearls really are part of this?" she said weakly.

"It sure looks like it," Joey said.

"I am very sorry," Lector said. "Will you be alright?"

She managed a nod. "I'll just go sit down . . . and try to reach Harry on his phone. . . . Please go. . . ."

"The police will no doubt have more questions for you later," Johnson said.

"I'll make sure Harry turns himself in when I reach him," she told him.

Johnson wasn't convinced, but at the moment he was more concerned about getting the pearls to Seto's doctors.

So was everyone else. They were all hastening back to the limousine now. Lector paused and looked back. "Thank you," he said to her.

She just gave a weak, overwhelmed nod.

"That poor woman," Serenity said as they crowded back into the vehicle and left. "She must feel awful."

"She turns a blind eye to what her son is really like," Duke frowned. "She must know more than she's saying."

"Not necessarily," Joey said. "Those jerks can be good actors when they wanna be. But I hope all of them can get arrested." He looked to the pearls clutched in Yami Bakura's hand. "And these things had better work to save Kaiba!"

"We'll soon know," Johnson said.

xxxx

No one wanted to send a text and say that they had the right pearls, just in case something still wouldn't be quite right. What if the antidote had already been found and removed? What if there wouldn't even be a trace that could be analyzed and duplicated? It almost seemed too good to be true that everything would suddenly go right. Lector couldn't bear to give anyone, especially Mokuba, false hope.

When they arrived at the medical center, Lector alone quickly went to find the doctor before anything was said to any of the group. He quietly explained about the pearls and the physician promptly took them to the lab for a thorough examination.

"There's definitely something in here," he soon reported to Lector. "We'll make sure it's really an antidote before we give any to Mr. Kaiba."

"Thank you," Lector said. He didn't bother to add for them to hurry, as Crump or Nesbitt might. The staff knew all too well about their time constraints.

He returned to the lobby and found Nesbitt and Joey telling the others all about their adventure.

"So you've really brought back the pearls?!" Tristan exclaimed.

"We hope," Joey said, clenching a fist. "The Infinity Ring pointed them out and all."

"Yeah, but that thing acts like a piece of junk so much, can you really trust anything it's pointing out?" Tristan retorted.

Yami Bakura growled. "Well, we don't have much choice in the matter, do we?"

"Look, I'm only saying we should be careful," Tristan said. "This is Kaiba's life! We can't afford any more mess-ups!"

"I'm sure we all agree with you," Gansley grunted. "But the doctors won't go giving him the antidote without first making certain it is what it is supposed to be."

"That's correct," Lector said. "They're analyzing the pearls right now." He sighed. "Where's the Pharaoh?"

"He's still watching the Paradox Brothers," Mai said. "He called in a while ago and said Vivian finally left and the Brothers followed her. He's shadowing them."

Joey slammed his fist into his palm. "What the heck could they be up to?! Maybe somebody should have gone with him to help out!"

"I considered it," Mai admitted, "but I decided I'd stay here in case Vivian doubles back and shows up here. I might have the best chance of getting through to her."

"I wanted to go," Yugi said, "but he told me I should stay here to look after everyone waiting for news about Kaiba. I think he thought . . . well . . . that if anything happened, I should be here to try to help Mokuba. . . ."

"If Kaiba dies, nothing will help the kid," Nesbitt grunted.

No one could disagree.

xxxx

Waiting for the lab results was agonizing. Lector didn't want to say anything to Mokuba until he was sure, but the more time dragged on, the more some of the less patient of the group were starting to lose their minds. Even those who were generally calmer and more able to wait were about fed-up. But at last the doctor emerged.

"We've finished the tests," he announced. "Whatever's in those pearls definitely is the antidote for this poison. I'm going to give it to Mr. Kaiba now."

"And then he'll be alright, won't he?" Téa demanded. "There's still several hours before the time period is up. . . ."

The doctor sighed. "That's true, but . . ."

"But what?!" Joey pounced. "There's no reason why it shouldn't work!"

". . . Except that the book said death could be any time during the 24 hours," Duke remembered. "It didn't say death would only happen after 24 hours."

"Oh no," Serenity whispered. "I'd forgot that. . . ."

"The poison has a very strong hold on Mr. Kaiba's body," the doctor said. "Every hour, his vital signs become more and more of a concern. It almost seems like it might be affecting his mind as well as his body."

"Is that really possible?" David said in surprise.

"Very possible," the doctor said.

"I know it would be if he was conscious," David said. "He might hallucinate or get lost in a delusion. But that would still apply when he's not conscious?!"

"It's a magic poison," Mai said bitterly. "Maybe it's like being sent to the Shadow Realm. You're trapped in your worst nightmares and you can't get out, no matter how hard you try."

That thought chilled everyone. And it sounded all too plausible.

The doctor opted not to comment on that. "Well, be that as it may, if the poison has too great a hold on him . . . the antidote may not be enough to save him."

Téa gasped. "No!"

"How soon will you know?" Yugi asked with a heavy heart.

"Hopefully within thirty minutes it will be clear if the antidote is working," the doctor said.

"May I come with you when you administer it?" Lector asked. "So I can tell Mokuba?"

"I think that would be a good idea," the doctor agreed.

xxxx

Mokuba immediately perked up when Lector entered the room accompanied by a doctor holding a syringe and a nurse. He had barely slept all night, and only had at all because Marik had kept encouraging him to do so. Now his expression filled with so much hope and joy that Lector's heart twisted at the thought that maybe things still wouldn't work out.

"You found it!" Mokuba exclaimed. "You found the antidote, didn't you?!"

"Yes, Mokuba," Lector smiled.

The nurse came over and pulled back Seto's sleeve, cleaning his arm for the injection. The doctor swiftly released the substance into Seto's system. "Now we wait," he sighed.

"But it's going to work, isn't it?!" Mokuba cried. "It has to work!"

"I certainly hope it will," Lector said. "The doctor is worried about the hold the poison has on your brother's body and possibly even his mind."

Mokuba stared at him. "His mind?!"

"It's not a normal poison," Lector said. "It seems that from his brain activity, it looks like it's wearing him down emotionally and mentally as well as physically."

"No. . . ." Mokuba gripped Seto's hand. "You have to be okay, Seto! You just have to be!"

"And hopefully he will be," Lector said. "But you deserve to know all of the possibilities, Mokuba."

Mokuba weakly nodded. He was grateful for Lector's consideration.

It didn't take long to see that the antidote was having trouble getting a foothold in Seto's badly weakened body. His condition didn't improve within the next thirty minutes. Mokuba, who had just wanted to believe all would be alright, didn't see how he could take any more. He stared at Seto's vital sign read-outs and the heart monitor and finally just slumped over his body, sobbing in utter despair. Marik and Lector didn't know what to do except to lay their hands on his shoulders and pray for a miracle.

Téa had come into the room some time ago and stood staring in sickened horror. The antidote had been their last hope. If it wasn't going to work either, it felt like all was lost.

But it couldn't be! It _couldn't_ be!

Téa clenched her hands into fists. She knew what she had to do.

xxxx

No matter how hard Seto tried to get up, he couldn't. The poison almost felt like a literal chain, binding him to the bottom of the abyss. And the longer he laid there, the more it tried to creep over him like a cold blanket of oblivion. But he couldn't give in. If he did, he would never wake up.

Somewhere in the distance he could hear his brother crying. It was a haunting, chilling sound that echoed up and down the walls of the space and pierced Seto's heart from every angle.

"Mokuba," he whispered. He could barely speak either.

"_Do you hear that, Seto?" _Gozaburo sneered. _"He knows there's no hope left for you. You'll never come back from this. It's already practically taken you."_

"It hasn't . . . yet," Seto choked out.

Something sharp dug into his arm for a brief moment and he violently flinched. Was that . . . was he feeling a needle in the real world? Could they have located the antidote?

"_Oh, they think this will help? It still won't if the poison has too great a hold, and I can promise you, Son, it does."_

Fire burned in Seto's heart and he gathered enough strength to speak again. "I'm . . . _not_ . . . your son!" he choked out. "You're _not_ my father! You were _never_ my father!"

Gozaburo just laughed. _"Legally I am, and you are. You bear my name! You wear it with pride. I had thought you had proved that you were worthy to be a Kaiba. So ruthless, so cruel. . . . You put all of my lessons into practice and you profited from them! But you've started abandoning all of those teachings for Yugi and his ridiculous philosophies! You actually care about people! Both you and Noa are complete failures!"_

"Don't . . . compare me to him," Seto hissed.

"_I didn't say you both failed in the same way. Although you both ended up being taken in by kindness and compassion and love. You never did stop loving your brother, though. That was one thing I never could train out of you. But I never thought I'd have to worry about you developing friendships or coming into familial feelings for any of my Big Five. Or even . . ."_

He trailed off or Seto tuned him out, he wasn't sure which. It seemed like the darkness was much more insistent now that the antidote had been injected. It didn't want Seto to recover. It forced him down even harder and he finally gasped in pain. It wasn't possible, but it was definitely a physical force, a presence. It was utterly terrifying.

"Help me," he finally choked out, not really sure who he was addressing. God? Mokuba? His friends?

Mokuba was crying again. It was even clearer now, and closer, and it was shattering Seto's heart in pieces. He had to get up. He had to fight off this poison and wake up and stop his brother's tears! He pushed against the force, but it held fast. He fell back down. Undaunted, he went right back to trying again to get up.

Now another voice broke through the darkness, a heartbroken female voice.

"Kaiba, please," Téa begged. "The doctors say the antidote isn't working like it's supposed to. The poison is so strong, you should have died right away. But somehow you didn't, not just because Joey revived you, but because you're too strong and too stubborn to let go of life! I know you're still hanging on now!" It felt like she took hold of his hand. "Please, you have to fight!"

"Téa. . . ." Seto tried to open his eyes, but it felt like the poison was weighing them down too much. The more he lay there, and the more Gozaburo tormented him, the more he felt beat-down to the point that he literally couldn't do anything. It was as if Gozaburo's words were physically merging with the poison and helping to bind him. He would never give up fighting against his stepfather and all he stood for . . . or at least that was what he had always said. But he _had_ started to become the man, in almost every cruel way possible. That knowledge was hard to face.

But he _had_ faced it, and he had tried to break away and become his own person again—someone who cared, even if he was afraid. Someone who didn't automatically take the most ruthless path in any decision he made. Someone who would risk his life to save another.

The poison was trying to bind him, but he had to break free, to embrace the antidote and let it heal the physical damage throughout his body.

"Kaiba, please don't leave us." Téa was whispering in his ear now, sounding at the point of tears. "That already happened once and I know Mokuba can't stand it without you. And . . . he's not the only one. I can't either! Seto . . . I . . . I love you. . . . I have for a while now, but I couldn't admit it even to myself. I thought you wouldn't feel the same, because . . . because I-I'm not sure I don't feel something else for you as well as friendship. . . . I just know that I can't lose you! I _won't_ lose you! I used some of my own life energy to bring you back when Reshef killed you. I'd do the same thing now if it would only work! Mokuba would too, in a heartbeat, just like he did then!"

It sounded strange for her to call him by his first name. And her other words. . . . He couldn't even process her other words . . . the ones not about Mokuba. . . .

"I know if you can fight your way back, it's mostly for Mokuba . . . and yourself. . . . But . . . I know you care about all the rest of us too. And I know I'm probably risking losing you as my friend if you can hear any of what I'm telling you now, but if will help give you any more strength to fight, even just so you can get upset and question me and go back in your shell because you can't deal with it, then it's worth it. I just want you to come back . . . even if it's not to me. . . ."

Seto just lay there, stunned, still unable to fully comprehend what he seemed to be being told. Téa loved him . . . possibly as something in addition to being a friend or even as part of her extended friend-family. Maybe it was all just his imagination, like Gozaburo being here was his imagination. Only he would never dream up something like this. He was hearing Téa in the real world, just as he had also heard Mokuba. Everything she had said was really her words.

She was right that he wasn't sure how to deal with it. He wanted to question her about it. How could she even think she could feel that way about him? He had wondered the same thing about Mokuba and his endless devotion, but part of him had felt that it was because the kid was just blinded by his childhood idolization of his brother. Or he had thought that until Mokuba had spoke up and confronted Seto on how hatred was taking hold of him during Battle City. Mokuba still loved him in spite of his faults, which he was aware of and didn't like.

Téa, though. . . . She had always acted like she was a few steps short of outright hating him, and not without good reason. But so much had changed since then. . . . She had become one of the most devoted and loyal of his newfound friends, and the one he had sometimes ended up confiding in. . . . He had tried on many occasions to protect her, but he would have done the same for any of them. He was in this mess because of trying to protect Joey. But . . . he had grown closer to Téa than he had to most of the others. It could be like how Lector and Nesbitt had become so close they felt like brothers. But was it that, in his case?

"Big brother . . ." Mokuba was pleading again now. "You've gotta come back. You can't let the poison beat you! _Please!_ You can't leave me . . . you can't. . . . Or any of us. . . . We all want you back so bad. . . ."

A bit of strength surged through Seto's veins. "Mokuba . . . Téa. . . . Everyone. . . ." He gripped the floor with his hands and pushed. Miraculously, this time he rose several inches. After being glued to the abyss, even that much was an immense improvement.

He _would_ keep fighting. He would make sure the antidote worked. He was going to make it back, to Mokuba, to Téa, to Yugi and Atem and Joey and all of them.

And when he did . . . well . . . there would definitely be a lot of things he would have to sort out.

But he would deal with that after he got back.

xxxx

Seto's hands started moving first. Mokuba and Téa, each holding one, both gasped. "Seto?!" Mokuba cried.

Slowly Seto's eyes opened. He stared at Mokuba with warmth and at Téa with wonder.

"Kaiba?!" Now Joey was barreling through the throng. Everyone was in the room by now, despite the doctor's objections. Mokuba was fine with it, knowing they were all worried about Seto. Joey gripped the bed railing. "Kaiba, you're awake?!"

"Yeah," Seto rasped. He held Mokuba close and also didn't let go of Téa's hand.

"You're going to be alright," Téa whispered in joy.

"I really am," Seto mused, amazed in spite of himself.

Mokuba cuddled close in sheer joy. "Oh Seto. . . ."

Lector smiled. "It's good to see you awake, Sir."

The trace of a smile appeared on Seto's lips as he looked down at his brother. "I'm glad too. But you don't have to call me 'Sir,' Lector."

Surprise filled Lector's eyes, but he nodded and gave a slight bow. "Very well then."

Seto leaned back in the bed, looking around the room at everyone gathered there. So many people who all cared about him—someone Gozaburo had said no one besides Mokuba would ever love. He had also said Mokuba wouldn't love him forever.

He was wrong on both counts.


	8. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

As the antidote triumphed over the poison, it also began to heal the wound in Seto's back. Since the weapon had been magical, that made sense enough. But the skin was still tender and Seto continued to lay on his side so as not to disturb it.

Mokuba had gone to sleep at last, curled up against Seto with a peaceful smile. Seto kept an arm around him while pondering on everything and trying to decide what to think of it all.

He had been informed of all that had happened and this new series of Chinese magical objects. Atem had returned after chasing Vivian Wong and the Paradox Brothers for hours, having discovered they were just trying to look other places for the pearls and the other items. According to the Brothers, there were still two more missing in addition to the pendant that was probably at the bottom of the river in the canyons and they and Vivian would be staying in town until they solved the mystery. No one was particularly pleased about that, nor at what two items missing might mean. Somehow they had the feeling that these Chinese objects weren't through with causing them trouble.

Ishizu's calls to people in the government had eventually yielded the news that Vivian actually was working for someone she knew in the Chinese government, while the Paradox Brothers had been acting on their own hoping to return the items to China and had honestly believed Vivian wanted them for herself. It was at least somewhat a relief, but it didn't take away anyone's distress at Vivian's lack of respect for personal space and her incessant fangirling. She had suddenly cuddled up to Atem and demanded to know all kinds of questions, such as what his connection was to Yugi and if he would be staying in town. Atem had been flabbergasted.

Seto wanted to forget all about all of that, although Nesbitt had made sure to inform him that Lector had wearily consented to consider taking Vivian on a dinner date if she would honestly help them save Seto, and since she had followed through, Lector figured he would have to as well. It was hard for Seto to imagine anyone going through that kind of torture for his sake, let alone for Lector to do so.

Joey still felt badly about the ridiculous spat they'd gotten into right before the gang had cornered them. _"Kaiba . . . man, I'm sorry," _he had blurted. _"I know you're really our friend now. I had no right to mouth off at you like that. And if I'd just been paying attention like you said, you wouldn't have got stabbed trying to save me. . . ."_

"_Don't worry about it, Wheeler,"_ Seto had insisted. _"I know you well enough to know you just say whatever you feel like without thinking about the consequences. And in a situation like that fight, it would have been impossible to pay attention to everything. I was just upset blurting something I shouldn't have said either."_

Joey had stared at him in shock. Seto was actually admitting he had said something he shouldn't have?! Had Hell froze over? Were pigs flying outside?

"_. . . I was upset because I was afraid you were going to be killed," _Seto had continued at last. _"I didn't want that."_

Joey had kept staring. _"Kaiba. . . ."_

"_I'm sorry I caused everyone so much trouble and grief."_

At last Joey had found his voice. _"Well . . . you'd just better not do it again, you hear?!"_

"_If I can help it, I won't,"_ Seto had grunted.

Joey had left still looking bowled over about their conversation.

All the members of the gang who had attacked Joey and Seto had finally been arrested. Harry's mother had kept her word and got in touch with him, and he actually felt horrible about the stabbing to the extent that he had convinced his friends to all turn themselves in for the beating—with the exception of Damien, who was unrepentant and had still tried to flee the city. But the police had caught him. Officer Valesquez and her partner had delivered him to jail with great relish. Seto and Mokuba planned to sue Damien, but Seto supposed he would go more lightly on the others, Harry in particular. Everyone else agreed that was fair.

Seto looked up at the girl sitting silently yet nervously next to him in a chair. Téa had remained while everyone else had quietly drifted out, not sure what to say or if she should even be the one to speak first or if she should wait for Seto to say something. Seto wasn't sure either. But he supposed the silence had gone on long enough and he would have to break it.

". . . I don't think I've ever seen you go this long without saying something before."

Téa started and looked up. "I . . . wasn't sure if you wanted to talk. . . ."

"I'm not sure what to say." Seto stared off at the window. "I heard everything you said. . . . Mokuba too. . . ."

"I'm sure it was what Mokuba said that gave you the strength to come back," Téa said.

"You both did." Seto contemplated some more on his reply. ". . . How sure are you about your feelings?"

"I just started putting the pieces together today," Téa admitted. "But I've really known and I've just been denying it to myself. We're finally friends and I didn't want to do anything to upset that. . . ."

"I thought you were in love with the Pharaoh," Seto grunted.

Téa went completely red. "You knew?!"

"It was pretty obvious. Although you haven't seemed as much that way since he's come back."

"I started growing closer to you without even really realizing it was happening," Téa said. "When Atem came back, I . . . I started realizing I was conflicted. I knew he didn't feel that way about me, and that was why I never told him, and I still didn't want to tell him, and I was thinking about you a lot more than I was him. . . ." She shook her head, knowing she was just rambling. "I'm sure you don't feel that way about me either, but . . . when the antidote didn't seem to be working, I knew I had to do something and . . . I guess I thought telling you the truth might shock you into fighting harder. . . . Marik had kind of suggested that earlier. . . ."

Seto was silent. "I don't know that I don't feel that way about you," he finally said. "I've never had such feelings, so I'm not sure I'd recognize them if they came. But I do know I care about you a lot. I've invited you to lunch and dinner and to various business events because I wanted to be with you. I said it was so Mokuba could be with you, but that was never completely true."

Now Téa was staring much like Joey had. "Kaiba . . ." She shifted on the chair. "Then . . . what should we do? What do you _want_ to do?"

Seto pondered for a moment. "Let's just take things as they come," he said. "We're still getting to know each other. We can keep doing things together and spending time together. I know how you feel now and I'm working out how I feel. If we mutually decide we want a romantic relationship, we'll try it."

Téa shifted again. She liked what Seto was saying, but a part of her still worried. "And what if it doesn't work out?" she said. "What if it spoils our friendship?"

"You of all people would worry about that?" Seto scoffed. "If we find it isn't working out, we'll just mutually agree to go back to the way things are now." He paused. "I'm just discovering what friendship actually is and that I like it. I have no intention of letting anything ruin what we've been developing."

Finally Téa smiled. Seto really had been changing, more than she had even realized. Now her mind was put at ease. "Alright," she said, and took Seto's hand between both of hers.

Seto hesitated, then laid his other hand on top of hers.

And Mokuba, who had sleepily started to wake up, beamed.


End file.
